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MAR  29  1911 
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Commentary  upon  the  Maya-Tzental 

Perez     Codex 


With   a   Concluding   Note   upon   the 
Linguistic   Problem   of   the    Maya   Glyphs 


BY 


William  E.  Gates 

Professor    in    School    of    Antiquity,     International    Theosophical 
Headquarters,     Point    Loma,    California 


!  u 


Point    Loma,    California 
1910 


With  the  Regards  of  the  Author 


Commentary  upon  the  Maya-Tzental 

Perez     Codex 


With   a   Concluding   Note    upon    the 
Linguistic    Problem    of    the    Maya    Glyphs 


BY 


William  E.  Gates 

Professor     in     School     of     Antiquity,     International     Theosophical 
Headquarters,     Point     Loma,     California 


Point     Loma,     California 
1910 


Copyrighted,    1910,  by  William  E.  Gates 


THE  ARYAN  THIOSOPHICAL  PR  ESI 
Point  Loma,  California 


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NOTE 

THE  following  paper  was  written  for  separate  publication, 
with  the  view  of  summarizing  some  of  the  data  afforded  by 
the  problems  connected  with  the  Maya  glyphs,  and  also  bearing 
upon  the  evolution  of  language-forms  in  their  relation  to  hu 
man  history ;  it  has  however,  upon  the  suggestion  of  Professor 
F.  W.  Putnam,  been  issued  as  one  of  the  Papers  of  the  Peabody 
Museum  of  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  Harvard 
University. 

The  data  themselves  are  the  accumulation  of  the  past 
twelve  years,  since  the  writer's  interest  was,  after  various  other 
fields  of  linguistic  study,  finally  drawn  to  and  fixed  upon  the 
languages  of  the  great  pre-Columbian  American  civilizations. 
Subsequent  researches,  begun  a  few  years  ago,  have  led  to  the 
belief  that  almost  equal,  parallel  results  will  in  the  future  be 
found  to  lie  within  the  great  Central  Asian  district,  behind 
what  we  know  as  Chinese ;  but  to  the  writer  the  greatest  door 
to  the  past  is  still  that  of  the  Maya  glyphs. 

The  trend  of  Science  for  the  past  thirty  years,  after  taking 
its  rise  then  at  the  very  climax  (so  thought)  of  materialism, 
has  now  in  these  last  two  or  three  years,  especially,  become 
more  manifest.  A  parallel  movement  is  now  apparent  in  nearly 
every  field,  each  body  of  scientists  working  in  their  own  lines, 
yet  all  seeming  as  if  led  towards  recognition  of  a  greater  past, 
and  of  worthier  views.  One  need  only  mention  the  work  of 
Professor  Socldy,  Professor  See,  Professor  Munsterberg  — 
among  many  others. 

In  this  progress  of  Science  the  writer  believes  Linguistics, 
in  the  wider  sense,  to  be  of  paramount  importance,  and  that 
the  philosophy  of  language  is  inseparable  from  Archaeology. 


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PEREZ    CODEX:    PAGE    6 


PEREZ    CODEX:    PAGE    17 


THE    PEREZ    CODEX 


THE;  PSREZ  CODEX  was  discovered  just  fifty  years  ago  by 
Prof.  Leon  de  Rosny,  while  searching  through  the  Bibliotheque 
Imperiale,  Paris,  in  the  hope  of  bringing  to  light  some  docu 
ments  of  interest  for  the  then  newly  awakened  study  of  Pre- 
Columbian  America.  It  was  found  by  him  in  a  basket  among 
a  lot  of  old  papers,  black  with  dust  and  practically  abandoned 
in  a  chimney  corner.  From  a  few  words  with  the  name 
Perez,  written  on  a  torn  scrap  of  paper  then  around  it  but 
since  lost,  it  received  its  name. 

Being  restored  to  its  proper  place  in  the  Library,  it  was  in 
1864  photographed  by  order  of  M.  Victor  Duruy,  Minister  of 
Instruction,  and  a  few  copies  issued  without  further  explan 
atory  notes  than  the  printed  wrappers.  The  number  of  copies 
is  stated  by  Prof,  de  Rosny  to  have  been  very  small ;  in 
Leclerc's  Bibl.  Amer.  (1878,  No.  2290)  it  is  given  as  only  10, 
and  in  Brasseur's  Bibl.  Mex-Guat.  (page  95),  as  50.  A  copy 
is  in  the  library  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology  at  Washington, 
and  referred  to  in  their  publications  as  a  most  fortunate  ac 
quisition.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  secure  a  copy  some  ten 
years  ago,  and  one  other  has  recently  appeared  in  a  Leipzig 
catalog  at  a  high  price.  Beyond  these  I  have  not  traced  any 
other  copy. 

In  1872  Prof,  de  Rosny  published  a  reproduction,  drawn 
by  hand,  which,  as  stated  by  him  later,  may  be  disregarded  for 
practical  purposes.* 

*  In  Archives  paleographiques  de  V Orient  et  de  I'Amerique,  atlas,  t.  I, 
pi.  117-142. 


8  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

In  1887  he  issued  a  facsimile  edition  in  colors,  85  copies, 
which  up  to  the  present  time  has  remained  the  only  attempt  to 
show  the  Codex  in  its  proper  colors,  and  has  become  exceed 
ingly  difficult  to  procure;  so  much  so  that  it  was  only  after 
seven  years  search  that  I  was  able  to  secure  my  own  copy.* 

In  1888  he  reissued  the  Codex,  uncolored,  with  the  same 
letter-press,  and  in  an  edition  of  100  copies.  This  has  also 
become  scarce. 

Each  of  these  three  editions  has  its  advantages  and  disad 
vantages.  The  colored  edition  of  1887,  having  been  worked 
over  by  hand,  in  lithography,  is  defective  in  various  places, 
both  as  regards  the  black  of  the  figures  and  glyphs,  and  in  the 
colors.  Coloring  exists  on  the  original  codex  which  was  not 
reproduced  at  all  in  the  edition,  and  the  colors  given  are  in 
many  cases  not  exact.  Thus  on  pages  19  and  20  two  different 
reds  are  used  for  the  backgrounds,  whereas  but  one  is  found 
in  the  original;  on  pages  15,  16  the  figures  are  a  turquoise 
green,  and  on  pages  17,  18  an  olive  green,  the  correct  color 
for  all  four  being  turquoise  green. 

I  have  been  able  to  find  no  inaccuracy  in  the  1888  edition, 
which  is  indeed  stated  in  the  introduction  to  be  entirely  by 
mechanical  process,  without  hand  intervention;  but  being  re 
produced  by  printer's  ink  in  black  only,  not  only  do  the  colors 
not  appear,  but  the  chromatic  values  are  actually  far  inferior 
to  the  photographs  of  1864.  It  was  stated  further  by  Prof, 
de  Rosny  that  some  features  of  the  MS.  had  been  lost  by 
deterioration  in  the  25  years  previous  to  his  editions  of  1887 
and  1888,  but  this  I  have  not  been  able  to  verify  in  any  im 
portant  point. 

The  photographs  and  the  edition  of  1888  are  to  all  general 
purposes  identical ;  but,  notwithstanding  that  the  photographs 
are  steadily  yellowing  by  age,  the  chromatic  values  are  so  far 
superior  that  I  have  continually  come  to  find  them  the  court  of 
final  decision  in  doubtful  matters.  In  a  very  considerable 
number  of  instances  a  close  examination  of  the  photographs 

*  In  his  Commcntar  sur  Pariser  Mayahandschrift,  Danzig,  1903,  Dr. 
Forstemann  does  not  know  of  the  existence  of  this  edition. 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  9 

has  suggested  the  presence  of  faint  lines  of  color  on  glyphs  or 
figures,  which  was  entirely  indistinguishable  in  both  of  the 
printed  editions,  and  which  was  yet  in  every  case  confirmed, 
although  sometimes  with  difficulty,  by  the  examination  of  the 
original  MS. 

The  proved  value,  as  well  as  the  scarcity,  of  these  photo 
graphs  was  so  great,  that  in  1905  I  had  my  set  photographed 
twice,  by  dry  and  wet  plate  processes,  and  a  few  copies  printed 
after  a  careful  comparison  and  selection  of  the  two  sets  of 
plates.  It  is  from  these  that  the  present  edition  has  grown.* 

The  present  edition,  save  for  the  photographs  thus  repro 
duced,  having  been  entirely  redrawn,  and  partly  restored,  it  is 
fitting  to  detail  just  what  has  been  done  in  this  respect. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  my  introduction  to  Maya  studies 
the  enormous  burdens  placed  on  research  therein  at  every 
turn,  bore  upon  me  as  upon  every  other  student.  The  subject 
and  its  possibilities  stimulate  enthusiasm  to  the  highest  degree; 
the  rewards  of  success  are  greater  than  those  of  any  like  prob 
lem  today;  and  yet,  fifty  years  since  the  present  Codex  was 
discovered,  and  thirty  years  since  Dr.  Forstemann's  unsurpass 
able  edition  of  the  Dresden  Codex,  the  actual  workers  on  the 
problem  are  the  barest  handful.  A  few  scattered  and  obscure 
references  amongst  the  volumes  on  volumes  of  Spanish  writ 
ers,  nearly  all  untranslated,  most  of  them  scarce  or  almost  un 
procurable,  and  many  not  even  printed,  make  up  the  literature 
to  be  searched  out.  And  a  few  points  of  decipherment  won 
and  safely  fixed  by  the  researchers,  from  Brasseur,  de  Rosny, 
Pousse,  Brinton  and  others  a  generation  ago,  to  Messrs.  Bow- 
ditch,  Seler,  Goodman  and  a  few  others  of  today,  are  all  we 
have  —  standing  out  in  a  wilderness  of  guesses  by  many  wri 
ters,  needless  of  naming. 

*  Codex  Peres:  Maya-Tzental.  Redrawn  and  Slightly  Restored,  and 
with  the  Coloring  as  it  originally  stood,  so  far  as  possible,  given  on  the 
basis  of  a  new  and  minute  examination  of  the  Codex  itself.  Mounted 
in  the  form  of  the  Original.  Accompanied  by  a  Reproduction  of  the 
1864  Photographs ;  also  by  the  entire  Text  of  the  Glyphs,  unemended 
but  with  some  restorations,  Printed  from  Type,  and  arranged  in  Par 
allel  Columns  for  convenience  of  study  and  comparison.  Drawn  and 
edited  by  William  E.  Gates.  (Privately  printed.)  Point  Loma,  1909. 


10  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ  CODEX 

Of  course  the  prime  and  absolute  necessity  of  such  a  study 
is  true  facsimiles;  but  the  task  of  using  even  these,  taken  as 
they  must  be  from  much  defaced  inscriptions  and  manuscripts, 
is  too  obvious  for  comment.  So  from  the  very  first  of  my 
studies  I  began  to  cherish  thoughts  of  the  day  when  Maya 
could  be  printed  with  type,  and  classified  indexes  to  the  glyphs 
at  hand.  From  one  point  of  view  such  facilities  can  only  be 
expected  to  come  after  decipherment;  from  another,  in  ab 
sence  of  bilingual  keys,  they  are  a  necessity  before  that  can  be 
attained.  So  far  as  his  work  covers,  a  great  deal  has  been 
done  in  this  line  by  Mr.  A.  P.  Maudslay  in  the  field  of  the 
inscriptions. 

At  the  very  outset  therefore  I  must  enter  acknowledgment 
of  the  assistance  that  I  owe  to  the  courtesy  at  that  time  of 
Prof.  F.  W.  Putnam,  of  Peabody  Museum,  and  Mr.  Chas.  P. 
Bowditch,  in  placing,  with  a  freedom  by  no  means  universal 
among  curators  and  researchers,  their  material  at  my  disposal, 
with  privilege  of  copying.  I  am  safe  to  say  that  while  I  have 
reclassified  the  glyphs  for  my  own  use  as  my  studies  went  on, 
yet  without  the  copy  which  by  Mr.  Bowditch's  courtesy  I  was 
allowed  to  make  of  his  card  index  to  the  glyphs  of  the  three 
codices,  as  a  start,  this  edition  of  the  Perez  Codex  would  not 
yet  have  reached  daylight  through  the  many  other  occupations 
among  which  Maya  studies  have  had  to  take  their  chances. 

At  first  it  seemed  possible  to  prepare  a  font  of  separate 
types  for  the  various  elements  of  the  compound  glyphs  we  find 
in  the  texts ;  but  after  having  such  a  font  made  a  number  of 
years  ago,  and  printing  a  couple  of  pages  of  the  Dresden  Co 
dex,  the  result  was  unsatisfactory ;  it  became  evident  that  the 
proper  Maya  font  of  type  must  be  both  separate  and  com 
posite,  as  is  used  in  Chinese,  and  not  separate  only  as  we  have 
for  Egyptian.  The  type  for  the  text  cards  of  this  edition  have 
therefore  been  made  this  way. 

As  to  the  colored  plates  of  the  Codex  herewith,  it  is  evident 
that  nothing  whatever  is  gained  by  preserving  the  irregular 
ities  of  the  defaced  parts  of  the  Codex,  while  everything  is  to 
be  gained  by  making  all  as  clear  and  distinct  as  possible.  The 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  11 

first  step  therefore  was  to  have  a  set  of  photographed  enlarge 
ments  of  two  diameters,  made  direct  from  the  1864  issue. 
From  these  I  made  careful  tracings,  myself,  of  the  black  figure 
and  glyph  lines  of  the  original,  making  at  the  same  time  the 
separate  enlarged  drawings  from  which  the  type  were  after 
wards  made.  At  this  first  drawing  only  the  evident,  the  indis 
putable  parts  were  drawn.  The  type  forms  were  then  classi 
fied,  arranged  in  parallel  columns,  and  compared.  All  was 
then  gone  over,  and  new  points  settled  on  the  basis  of  the  fam 
iliarity  thus  gained.  It  is  a  fair  estimate  to  say  that  this  pro 
cess  of  checking  and  verifying  was  gone  through,  first  to  last, 
down  to  the  final  proof-reading  of  the  printed  sheets,  some 
fifty  times. 

One  most  important  fact  was  established  by  this  process, 
and  must  be  noted.  In  the  Perez  Codex  at  least,  nothing  is  to 
be  taken  for  granted,  nothing  charged  to  a  careless  scribe,  and 
no  variants  regarded  as  being  identical  in  value  —  with  a  very 
few  exceptions,  to  which  I  shall  advert  later.  Wherever  there 
remains  enough  of  any  glyph  to  show  its  characteristic  strokes, 
it  can  be  regarded  as  safely  indicated ;  whenever  the  strokes 
are  not  just  those  characteristic  of  any  glyph,  it  cannot  be  in 
ferred.  Down  to  the  very  end  of  the  various  revisions  I  found 
myself  able  to  add  glyphs  which  at  first  seemed  hopeless,  and 
yet  when  once  seen  became  clear  and  plain.  Relying  on  the 
presence  of  the  photographs  to  check  the  work,  I  have  thus 
added  a  very  considerable  number  to  the  glyphs  at  first  appar 
ent.  In  some  cases,  as  in  6-b-ll  and  17,  and  especially  in 
8-b-7,  8,  10,  where  glyphs  were  only  partially  erased,  but  no 
other  instances  of  perfect  glyphs  existed  to  compare  them  with, 
I  have  let  them  alone,  without  attempting  restoration.  In 
short,  I  may  have  made  some  errors  of  eye,  but  I  have  guessed 
nothing. 

In  a  very  few  places  I  have  restored  glyphs  totally  erased, 
relying  on  the  parallelism  of  the  passages.  Such  are  some  of 
the  Ahau-numbers  in  the  upper  sections  of  pages  2  to  11,  and 
in  the  central  sections  on  those  pages,  the  initial  pairs  of  glyphs 
on  pages  15  to  18-a,  b,  c,  the  first  columns  of  pages  19  and  20, 


12  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

and  a  few  day-signs  on  pages  21,  23  and  24.  These  glyphs  are 
all  necessitated  by  their  different  series,  and  hence  can  cause 
no  confusions ;  while  it  seemed  advantageous  to  have  them  be 
fore  the  eye.  A  fair  instance  of  the  procedure  is  shown  on 
page  3-b-l,  3.  The  temptation  was  strong  to  put  the  usual 
glyph  here  as  on  all  the  other  pages,  but  the  slight 
variation  in  the  lines  left  of  glyph  3-b-3  forbade  it. 
The  restoration  will  further  be  found  a  little  bolder  on  the 
type-cards  than  in  the  colored  plates,  where  I  have  in  general 
only  endeavored  to  reproduce  what  could  be  seen  actually  pre 
sent.  The  glyphs  restored  on  the  upper  part  of  page  7  would 
seem  hopeless  at  first  sight ;  but  they  are  well-known  and  com 
mon  forms,  and  the  characteristic  traces  shown  on  the  photo 
graphs  belong  to  these  and  to  no  others  known. 

The  cards  of  type-printed  text,  in  parallel  columns  for  con 
venience  of  study,  are  self-explanatory.  Such  an  arrangement 
has  from  the  first  seemed  to  me  indispensable  for  proper  study 
and  comparison.  The  paging  of  the  de  Rosny  editions  I  have 
retained,  except  to  change  the  practically  blank  page  1  to  be 
page  25,  since  to  number  this  as  1  is  confusing.  For  the  divis 
ions  and  the  numbering  of  the  glyphs  I  have  made  my  own  ar 
rangement.  It  is  possible  that  section  b  on  pages  2  to  11 
should  only  go  to  the  bottom  line  of  the  central  figure,  leaving 
section  d  to  read  clear  across  the  page,  and  another  section  to 
be  made  to  the  left  of  the  nearly  erased  figures  at  the  bottom ; 
but  the  chances  as  shown  by  the  lining  and  arrangement  of  the 
columns  seemed  to  favor  it  as  I  have  given  it.  Only  final 
decipherment  can  decide  definitely. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  13 

THE    COLORS 

THE  colors  of  the  Codex  afforded  a  number  of  questions 
for  solution,  some  of  which  I  have  cleared  up  and  embodied 
in  the  plates;  a  few  are  I  believe  insoluble.  I  have  also  been 
able  to  add  a  few  wholly  new  points,  not  indicated  by  any  of 
the  preceding  editions. 

Being  unable  to  make  a  personal  examination  of  the  orig 
inal,  I  prepared  from  my  enlarged  black  drawings,  above  men 
tioned,  another  full  set  including  the  figures  and  all  glyphs  or 
other  parts  showing  any  suggestions  of  color.  Upon  these  I 
prepared  a  list  of  nearly  200  questions  covering  every  detail, 
together  with  certain  general  specifications,  and  had  the  whole 
made  the  subject  of  a  careful  and  exhaustive  comparison  with 
the  original  at  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale.  This  report,  when 
duly  returned  with  the  various  details  set  out,  with  the  var 
ious  colors  shown  in  their  exact  tints  by  water-colors,  and  with 
a  special  analysis  of  the  question  of  the  fading  of  the  colors, 
was  again  checked  and  verified  by  the  evidence  of  the  three 
editions. 

In  doubtful  questions  arising  from  faded  colors,  I  have 
sought  to  show  the  condition  of  the  original  as  it  exists  today. 
In  the  solid  red  backgrounds  and  other  places  I  have  aimed  to 
show  as  far  as  possible  what  the  Codex  looked  like  when  fresh. 

This  question  as  to  what  all  the  colors  in  detail  were  when 
fresh,  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have  quite  solved.  The  following 
palette  scheme  seems  to  me  about  as  near  as  the  data  permit 
us  to  formulate. 

A  permanent  black,  being  the  parts  reproduced  in  black  in 
the  present  edition. 

A  brick-red,  tinged  with  crimson,  used  for  backgrounds, 
red  numerals,  and  probably  elsewhere.  This  we  may  call  un 
fading  red. 

A  genuine  brown,  as  on  the  animals,  pages  5-a,  8-a ;  per 
haps  also  elsewhere  as  lining  ornament. 

A  pale  pink  as  flesh  color  on  the  human  figures. 


14  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

A  blue,  as  on  the  possible  katun  number  series  on  pages 
23  and  24. 

A  turquoise-green,  with  varying  amounts  of  blue  tinge,  on 
the  spotted  figures  and  in  the  numeral  columns  of  pages  15 
to  18;  also,  with  somewhat  less  of  the  blue,  for  the  "water" 
bands  on  pages  21  to  24. 

The  above  colors  are  all  definite  and  positive. 

Then  next  appears  a  brownish  color  used  for  lining  or 
ornamenting  various  glyphs,  and  the  clothing,  headdress,  etc., 
etc.,  of  the  figures.  We  find  many  shades  from  a  pale  neutral 
up  to  a  darker  clear  brown,  and  also  a  definitely  reddish,  as  on 
the  tail  of  the  bird  on  the  right  side  of  page  23.  This  brown 
may  be  a  fading  of  the  red  of  the  backgrounds  and  numerals, 
but  the  permanence  of  the  color  in  these  latter  places  is  so 
positive  that  I  believe  it  is  not  so.  I  think  it  should  be  re 
garded  as  separate. 

We  next  come  to  a  color  question  related  directly  to  de 
cipherment,  that  of  the  very  difficult  numeral  columns  on  pages 

15  to  18.    There  is  no  practical  reason  discernable  for  the  use 
of  alternating  colors  save  the  avoidance  of  confusion  between 
bar  combinations.    Three  bars  together  of  different  colors  stand 
of  course  for  three  5's ;  of  one  color  they  would  make  a  single 
number  15.    We  therefore  find  here  our  above  black,  red  and 
blue-green  alternating  and  clearly  marked  in  places ;    but  we 
also  find  many  numerals  of  varying  shades  of  brownish,  bistre 
and   grayish.     I   called  for  especial  care  in  the  examination  of 
these  points  on  the  original  Codex,  and  the  water-color  sheets 
and  explanatory  notes  show  in  detail  the  facts  of  the  present 
state  of  the  Codex.     Prior  to  the  examination  I  supposed  that 
these  faded  numerals  were  a  faded  red,  but  this  is  stated  in 
the  report  to  be  certainly  not  the  case ;  the  suggestion  is  made 
that  they  are  probably  faded  blacks. 

From  the  latter  conclusion  I  am  inclined  in  part  to  dissent, 
at  least  as  to  certain  passages,  for  two  reasons.  These  are, 
first  the  actual  permanence  of  the  above  noted  main  colors, 
everywhere  else;  and  second,  passages  in  the  second  columns 
of  pages  16  and  17.  In  each  of  these  we  find  faded  brown  or 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ  CODEX  15 

gray  bars,  so  placed  between  or  next  to  plain  black  bars  as 
would  give,  were  they  faded  blacks,  more  than  three  black 
bars  together. 

Another  point  on  page  17  is  to  be  noted.  In  the  top  section, 
first  column,  are  five  blue  3's.  Some  of  these  blue  dots,  as 
shown  in  the  1887  edition  and  in  my  water-colors,  have  faded 
to  the  same  light  brown  seen  elsewhere.  The  brown  and  the 
blue  5  in  the  second  column  of  this  page,  middle  division,  as 
just  mentioned,  have  also  an  identical  chromatic  value  in  the 
photographs. 

My  whole  conclusion  therefore,  so  far  as  I  can  formulate 
one,  is  that  in  these  columns  we  have : 

Red,  black,  and  blue-green  numerals,  as  shown.  Some  of 
the  blue  numerals  seem  to  have  been  outlined  with  black,  of 
which  traces  still  appear  on  the  original,  are  seen  in  the  photo 
graphs,  and  indicated  in  the  present  color  plates. 

Several  instances  where  the  Codex  has  been  rubbed  so  as 
to  leave  only  the  outlines  of  original  black  numerals.  These 
are  now  gray  in  the  original,  and  I  have  left  them  as  black 
outlines,  touched  in  with  gray. 

Finally,  a  number  of  pale  brown  numerals  which  are  either 
faded  blue-greens,  or  else  indicate  a  fourth  color  in  the  orig 
inal.  Which  of  these  alternatives  is  the  true  one,  I  cannot  say. 

The  original  Codex  is  still  in  practically  as  good  condition 
as  when  the  three  editions  were  taken  from  it.  The  material 
of  which  it  is  made  is  a  maguey  paper  of  grayish  tinge,  and 
not  a  yellowish  brown  as  would  be  inferred  from  the  1887 
edition.  This  is  noteworthy,  as  the  wearing  away  of  the  coat 
ing  with  which  the  paper  was  surfaced  for  the  writing,  does 
not  leave  a  brownish  place  which,  as  in  the  1887  edition,  might 
be  mistaken  for  traces  of  applied  color.  This  coating  is  indeed 
better  preserved  in  places  than  is  shown  by  the  1887  edition ; 
thus  the  headdress  at  the  extreme  left  of  page  20,  just  to  the 
right  of  the  restored  8  Ezanab  on  the  present  color  plates,  is 
shown  with  the  coating  all  erased  and  the  black  writing  as  if 
left  on  the  ground-paper  —  which  is  incorrect. 


16  COMMENTARY   ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 


THE    PAGES    IN    DETAIL 

COMING  then  to  the  question  of  the  subject-matter  of  the 
Codex,  I  feel  that  little  is  in  order  beyond  a  simple  analytical 
description  of  the  different  pages,  rather  than  any  attempt  at 
an  interpretation.  The  road  of  general  deductions  from  super 
ficial  resemblances  between  unknown  elements  and  the  details 
of  other  known  things  from  other  times  and  places,  is  strewn 
by  the  wrecks  of  too  many  theories  to  be  attractive  traveling. 
I  am  firmly  convinced  of  the  greatness  and  importance  of  the 
study  we  have  before  us,  and  the  exalted  civilization  which 
produced  it ;  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  interpret  these  monu 
ments.  Indeed  the  very  persistence  with  which  the  interpre 
tation  (which  will  certainly  be  self-evident  and  everywhere 
applicable  when  it  does  finally  come)  still  eludes  us,  is  a  suf 
ficient  proof  that  we  have  not  yet  found  the  right  road.  When 
we  do,  great  doorways  to  the  past  of  mankind  will  open  of 
themselves,  and  we  will  know  more  of  human  life  and  evolu 
tion  than  we  now  guess.  Until  then  we  can  only  describe, 
classify,  and  try  to  get  rid  of  some  of  the  mechanical  impedi 
menta  of  the  search. 

What  we  have  of  the  Perez  Codex  is  manifestly  but  a  frag 
ment;  the  extent  of  it  originally  we  have  no  means  of  even 
guessing.  It  is  fortunate  however  that  what  we  have  gives 
several  practically  complete  chapters  or  portions  of  the  work. 
Taking  first  the  side  of  the  MS.  paged  2  to  12,  we  find  the  en 
tire  side  covered  by  a  series  of  pictures  with  text,  all  identical 
in  arrangement.  The  few  remaining  traces  on  page  12  show 
its  likeness  to  the  others,  for  we  see  in  their  proper  places  parts 
of  the  Tun-glyph  on  which  the  figures  on  the  upper  section  are 
seated ;  of  the  Cimi,  Tun  and  Cauac  glyphs  just  as  in  pages 
ll-c-2,  6  and  8;  also  of  the  columns  of  glyphs  to  the  left,  and 
traces  of  the  headdress.  As  will  appear  further,  at  least  two 
more  pages  are  required  to  complete  this  series,  and  it  is  as 
good  a  supposition  as  any  other  that  they  were  those  which 
would  be  numbered  1  and  13 — that  is,  one  before  page  2  and 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  17 

one  after  page  12.  For  convenience  of  reference  the  divisions 
of  these  pages  may  be  lettered  from  a  to  e;  a  being  given  to 
the  upper  portion,  b  to  the  left  columns  of  glyphs,  e  to  the 
large  middle  picture,  and  c  and  d  to  the  text  divisions  above 
and  below  this. 

Taking  up  first  the  central  figures,  section  e,  we  find  in 
each  a  standing  figure,  with  ceremonial  headdress  of  varying 
character,  offering  a  dragon's  head  (a  universal  symbol  of 
wisdom)  to  another  figure,  seated  on  a  cushioned  dais,  the 
side  of  which  bears  various  "  constellation  "  signs.  The  latter 
in  turn  extends  his  hands,  either  holding  some  object,  or  else 
in  a  simple  gesture.  The  standing  figures  are  all  almost  com 
pletely  preserved;  the  seated  ones  unfortunately  largely  or 
wholly  obliterated.  In  front  of  the  standing  ministrant  is  a 
vase  of  offerings,  usually  a  triple  Kan  figure,  and  in  two  cases 
with  knives.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  picture,  facing  in  every 
case  but  one  towards  the  ministrant,  is  a  bird  figure,  different 
on  each  page,  and  having  in  two  cases  a  human  head.  On  each 
page  is  an  Ahau  sign  with  red  numeral,  all  of  them  together 
forming  a  series  which  (starting  on  the  supposed  page  1  with 
4  Ahau)  gives  the  succession  4,  2,  13,  11,  9,  7,  5,  3,  1,  12,  10, 
8,  6;  in  other  words  the  numbers  of  thirteen  consecutive 
katuns.  The  Ahau  numerals  13,  11,  9,  on  pages  3,  4  and  5, 
are  entirely  distinct,  and  enough  traces  appear  on  other  pages 
to  establish  this  as  a  katun  series  beyond  question.  If  this 
chapter  includes  just  a  round  of  numbers  it  would  of  course 
be  complete  in  13  pages.  The  chapter  may  be  historical  in 
contents,  but  the  presence  of  this  numeral  Ahau-series  clearly 
relates  these  pages  to  successive  katuns  in  some  way,  whatever 
other  bearings  they  may  have.  The  ten  pages  thus  in  some 
way  definitely  have  to  do  with  the  lapse  of  72,000  days,  or  not 
quite  200  solar  years,  and  the  extension  of  the  series  to  a  full 
cycle  of  20  katuns  is  quite  likely.  The  background  of  this 
section  e  is  red  on  each  alternate  page. 

Returning  now  to  section  a,  we  find  on  each  page  three 
figures,  nearly  all  of  persons  or  animals,  seated  on  a  large  base 


18  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

practically  identical  with  the  tun-glyph.  Fourteen  of 
the  backgrounds  to  these  figures  are  red.  Above  each 
figure  there  seems  to  have  been  at  least  six  glyphs,  of  which 
but  very  few  are  left.  Above  these  is  a  space  entirely  erased. 
In  the  center  of  the  section  on  each  page  is  a  column  contain 
ing  at  least  two  Ahaus  with  red  numerals.  The  numerals  of 
the  upper  row  exceed  those  of  the  lower  by  6;  each  row  de 
creases  from  page  to  page  by  4.  The  erased  margins  of  the 
MS.  do  not  afford  space  for  another  picture  besides  the  three, 
on  either  side,  but  they  do  just  give  room  for  another  Ahau- 
column  on  the  left  of  each  page.  If  this  second  Ahau-column 
existed,  we  have  again  the  katun-series  repeated  in  each  row 
across.  If  it  did  not  exist,  the  series  (reading  from  the  sup 
posed  page  1)  of  13,  9,  5,  etc.,  and  7,  3,  12,  etc.,  decreasing  by 
4's,  give  the  numbers  of  successive  tuns.  Once  again  the  ques 
tion  of  whether  a  simple  number-round  of  thirteen  terms,  or 
a  full  round  of  twenty  terms,  whether  tuns  or  katuns,  was 
originally  displayed  on  the  Codex,  must  be  left  undetermined. 
It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  faint  but  exact  traces  of  a  third 
Ahau,  on  a  higher  line,  appear  on  page  5,  as  well  as  some 
doubtful  traces  on  page  8.  No  definite  relationship  between 
the  pictures  of  this  section  a  and  those  of  section  e  is  apparent. 
Section  b  is  made  up  of  45  or  more  glyphs  in  three  col 
umns.  The  first  column  is  almost  totally  erased  on  every  page, 
and  I  have  disregarded  it  both  in  assigning  reference  numbers 
and  in  the  type  cards.  The  other  two  columns  I  have  num 
bered  in  double  column  sequence  downwards;  but  this  can  be 
regarded  as  solely  for  convenience'  sake.  The  glyph 
which  is  three  times  repeated  at  the  beginning  of  page 
2,  and  recurs  in  parallel  position  repeated  two  to  five  times  on 
each  page,  is  the  most  common  glyph  in  the  whole  Codex.  It 
is  identifiable  probably  38  times,  including  twice  at  the  top  of 
the  erased  first  column  on  page  4.  It  heads  the  second  column 
several  times  on  every  page,  except  7,  which  is  too  erased  for 
any  determination,  and  page  3,  where  a  slight  variation  in 
what  is  left  of  the  postfix  at  b-3  forbade  its  insertion  under 
the  rules  I  have  given  limiting  restorations.  I  suspect  that 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 


19 


this  glyph  should 
following  reason. 


be  repeated  at  3-b-9  and  ll-b-9,  for  the 
In  positions  b-6,  b-8  or  b-10  of  each  page 
that  is  found  nowhere 
Dresden  or  Tro.-Cort. 


occurs  a  certain   face-glyph  j 

else    in    either    the    Perez,     • 

codices.    If  the  initial  glyph  is  repeated  at  3-b-9  and  ll-b-9  as 

suggested,  then  (with  a  slight  variation  on  page  4)  this  series 

of  repetitions  of  the  initial  glyph  will  in  each  case  be  closed  by 

the  face-glyph  in  question. 

A  marked  feature  of  section  b  is  the  occurrence,  near  the 
bottom  of  each  page,  of  a  Cauac-sign,  with  or  without  the 
wing-postfix,  and  with  prefixed  and  superfixed 
numerals,  exactly  as  is  so  common  in  connex-  *| 
ion  with  the  Chuen-sign  on  the  Inscriptions.  This  Cauac-sign 
is  usually  accompanied  by  an  Ahau  and  a  Tun,  each  with 
numerals  that  are  for  the  most  part  erased.  This  combination 
suggests  distance-numbers  and  dates,  somewhat  as  on  the  In 
scriptions;  in  this  case  the  double-numbered  Cauacs  would 
stand  for  so  many  uinals  plus  so  many  days.  The  following 
combinations,  besides  the  one  above,  are  also  found : 


Section  c  consists  of  16  glyphs  in  two  rows,  above  the  cen 
tral  picture.  Glyphs  15  and  16  on  each  page  are  erased.  The 
chief  general  characteristic  is  the  frequent  repetition  of  the 
Cimi-compound,  *&  *+  VI;  the  repetition  on  each  page  of  a 
Cauac-sign  with  jjf^r^Q  single  or  double  numerals  as  in 
section  b ;  and  of  Tun-compounds,  with  Gl3  subfix  and  with 


varying  prefixes  (frequently  faces),  as  especially  see  page  5. 

Section  d  is  a  triple  row  of  glyphs,  originally  21  in  some 
instances,  but  with  many  now  erased.  I  am  able  to  establish 
few  general  characteristics  for  this  section,  save  again  the  fre 
quency  of  the  Cimi-compound  as  in  section  c,  of  various  Tun- 


20 


COMMENTARY   ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 


compounds,    and    of    the    two    glyphs 

With  the  exception  of  10-b-4,  the  face  ffiffy^  and 

with  the  tau-eye  occurs  only  in  this  section  d  and  on  pages  15 

to  18.     This  glyph  is  exceedingly  common  both  in  Dres.  and 

Tro.-Cort.,  the  form  in  which  it  appears  at  3-d-4,  6, 

occurring    (including   its   secondary   compounds)    no 


less  than  126  times  in  Dres.  and  33  times  in  Tro.-Cort. 

Beneath  section  d  are  the  remains  of  red  numerals  and  of 
heads  and  headdresses  of  figures  which  are  now  too  much 
erased  to  give  any  basis  for  comment. 

A  most  marked  feature  of  the  Codex  is  the  very  large 
number  of  Tun-compounds,  a  feature  confined  exclusively, 
with  one  exception,  to  the  present  pages  2  to  11,  and  pages  23, 
24.  A  classified  list  shows  28  compounds  of  this  glyph, 
20  of  these  showing  the  subfix,  and  combined  with  a 
face  or  other  prefix.  The  connexion  of  this  fact  with  the 
Tun-bases  of  section  a,  and  with  the  katun-rounds  shown  by 
the  Ahau-series  above  referred  to,  is  manifest. 

To  sum  up  the  general  characteristics  of  this  side  of  the 
MS.,  and  without  attempting  to  interpret  any  separate  glyphs, 
we  find  the  following  data: 

The  Cimi-compound  fQxYl  an^  i*s  sub-compound 
occurs  25  times.  i^ovo 

The  numeral-compounded  Cauac  occurs  20  times. 

The  glyph  £\~)£^D[  occurs  13  times  on  this  side  and  once 
on  page  23.  v/JfcLSv 

The  Chuen-compound  ©ftTT^  occurs  19  times  and  prob 
ably  oftener  —  once  only  ^yT/Ji  |j>)  on  the  other  side  of  the  MS. 

The  various  Tun-glyphs  occur  45  times,  on  the  two  sides. 

The   f ace-glyph  ^J^i&l   occurs  10  times. 


occurs  10  times. 


The  Kan-Ymix  glyph 


The  glyph 
a  prefix  and  a 


occurs  37  times  on  this  side  and,  with 
changed  postfix,  once  on  page  24. 


With  the  exceptions  noted,  none  of  the  above  glyphs  occur 
at  all  on  the  reverse  side  of  the  MS. 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  21 

There  are  finally  19  different  Yax  ( fy^} )  compounds, 
occurring  in  all  25  times,  16  of  them  on  this  side  of  the  MS. 

With  three  exceptions  the  above  glyphs  are  the  only  ones 
that  are  repeated  in  the  Codex  with  any  marked  frequency. 
The  three  exceptions  are  the  face  with  tau-eye,  already 
mentioned,  and  the  two  glyphs  occurring  as  an  initial 

pair  twelve  times  on  pages  15  to  18,  sec 
tions  a,  b,  c. 

Of  month  signs  used  as  such  I  am  only 
satisfied  of   12   Cumhu,  at   18-b-4  and  of 
16  Zac,  at  4-c-7.     The  glyph    (rfijfa    at  7-c-2  may  also  be 
1  Yaxkin.  [jr^lj 

The  only  cardinal  point  sign  is  that  of  the  West, 
occurring  at  4-b-14  and  again  at  16-a-6. 

There  are  besides  these  numeral  Cauacs,  15  other  Cauac 
D""x")  compounds,  occurring  in  all  17  times  on  this  side,  and 
twice  on  pages  23,  24. 

Upon  turning  over  the  Codex,  we  find  that  whereas  on  the 
side  we  have  been  considering  the  scribe  limited  himself  to  the 
conventional  red  numerals  and  backgrounds,  with  here  and 
there  a  touch  of  brown,  upon  this  other  side  we  have  a  wealth 
of  color  united  with  a  harmony  of  composition  and  structure 
that  marks  a  very  high  degree  of  artistic  skill.  It  is  not  alone 
the  accuracy  of  the  drawing  and  the  writing,  such  as  we  have 
noted  in  connexion  with  the  study  of  the  glyphs,  but  the  whole 
manuscript  as  it  lies  open  before  us  shows  that  sense  of  pro 
portion,  that  ability  to  unify  without  seeming  effort  a  multi 
tude  of  details  into  a  perfectly  balanced  whole,  which  is  the 
positive  mark  of  developed  and  genuine  culture.  When  we 
remember  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  combining  primary  colors 
into  a  brilliancy  that  is  not  garish,  and  the  equal  difficulty  of 
achieving  artistic  mastery  in  a  conventional  treatment  of  forms, 
we  are  simply  forced  to  recognize  that  we  have  here  the  evid 
ence  of  an  advanced  school  of  art  with  full  rights  of  inde 
pendent  citizenship.  If  the  figures  look  strange  and  sometimes 
distorted,  we  must  remember  that  our  whole  training  has  been 


22  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

in  the  realistic  school,  by  which  we  are  prone  to  judge  all 
others,  but  by  which  they  must  not  be  judged.  We  have  no 
more  right  to  weigh  these  compositions  in  the  scales  of  our  art 
motifs  than  we  have  to  weigh  Greek  rhythm  of  quantity  or 
Saxon  of  alliteration  against  our  weights  by  which  we  measure 
rhythm  of  rhyme  and  stress.  In  fact  it  is  impossible  for  us 
even  to  judge  concerning  the  true  harmonic  effect  of  these 
other  measures,  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  very 
soul  itself  of  our  meter  is  not  empty  and  tinny  as  compared 
with  these  others  —  quality  for  quality. 

There  is  one  great  broad  line  that  divides  the  nations  and 
civilizations  of  the  earth,  past  and  present,  in  all  their  arts  of 
expression.  We  may  call  it  that  of  the  ideographic  as  against 
the  literal.  It  controls  the  inner  form  of  language  and  of 
languages;  it  manifests  in  the  passage  of  thought  from  man 
to  man ;  it  determines  whether  the  writing  of  the  people  shall 
be  hieroglyphic  or  alphabetic;  it  gives  both  life  and  form  to 
the  ideals  of  their  art.  It  is  a  distinction  that  was  clearly  re 
cognized  by  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  when  he  laid  down  that 
the  incorporative  characteristic  essential  to  all  the  American 
languages  is  the  result  of  the  exaltation  of  the  imaginative  over 
the  ratiocinative  elements  of  mind. 

The  time  has  passed  when  we  think  that  the  absence  of  our 
perspective  drawing  in  Japanese  pictures  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  these  "  children  of  nature  "  never  happened  to  recognize 
that  a  thing  looks  smaller  in  proportion  to  its  distance,  so  that 
they  ought  to  come  to  us  to  learn.  We  have  come,  in  some 
measure  if  not  yet  fully,  to  recognize  that  whereas  we  show  a 
thing  to  the  eye,  these  other  peoples  suggest  a  thought  to  the 
mind,  by  their  pictures.  And  we  should  remember,  and  re 
member  always,  that  while  our  modern  art  having  won  its 
technical  and  artistic  skill  within  the  past  few  hundred  years, 
is  now  beginning  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  materialism  of 
the  eye  by  efforts  towards  the  "  impressionist "  methods,  these 
ancient  peoples  had  long  since  arrived  at  the  ability  to  convey 
"  impressions  "  through  the  medium  of  harmonious  composi 
tions  of  the  most  rigid  conventional  elements —  an  artistic 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  23 

achievement  which  those  who  know  its  difficulties  can  alone 
begin  to  appreciate. 

It  may  be  quite  easily  forgiven  to  one  trained  with  Western, 
modern  eyes,  who  at  first  sight  of  these  monuments,  in  total 
ignorance  of  their  meanings,  sees  them  as  strange  or  grotesque. 
But  when,  as  their  strangeness  wears  away,  one  comes  to  see 
the  unfailing  accuracy  with  which  the  glyphs  are  drawn,  one's 
opinion  of  their  makers  has  to  change.  And  when,  with  this 
familiarity  gained,  one  advances  to  an  appreciation  of  the  work 
in  its  bearings  as  a  whole,  one  has  to  acknowledge  himself  fac 
ing  the  production  of  craftsmen  who  had  the  inheritance  of  not 
only  generations,  but  ages  of  training.  Such  a  combination  of 
complete  mastery  in  composition,  perfect  control  of  definite 
and  fixed  forms,  and  hand  technique,  can  grow  up  from  bar 
barism  in  no  few  hundred  years.  I  would  hesitate  to  think  it 
could  even  come  in  a  few  thousands,  unless  they  were  years  of 
greater  settledness  and  peaceful  civilization  than  our  two 
thousand  years  of  disturbed  and  warring  European  Christen 
dom  have  yet  had  an  example  of  to  show  us.  It  is  easy  enough 
in  the  absence  of  definite  historical  records,  and  in  our  general 
ignorance  of  human  evolution,  to  theorize  and  speculate  about 
it  all;  but  the  commonly  accepted  picture  in  our  minds  of  a 
few  savage  wandering  tribes  settling  and  growing  up  in  this 
country  some  several  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  after  the 
Christian  era,  simply  will  not  fit  in  with  the  fact  of  their  ability 
to  produce  such  works  a  few  hundred  years  later.  Had  we 
nothing  but  the  Perez  Codex  and  Stela  P  at  Copan,  the  merits 
of  their  execution  alone,  weighed  simply  in  comparison  with 
observed  history  elsewhere,  would  prove  that  we  have  to  do 
not  with  the  traces  of  an  ephemeral,  but  with  the  remains  of 
a  wide-spread,  settled  race  and  civilization,  worthy  to  be  ranked 
with  or  beyond  even  such  as  the  Roman,  in  its  endurance,  de 
velopment  and  influence  in  the  world,  and  the  beginnings  of 
whose  culture  are  still  totally  unknown.  As  to  the  Codex  be 
fore  us,  we  can  only  imagine  what  the  beauty,  especially  of  the 
pages  we  now  come  to  discuss,  must  have  been  when  the  whole 
was  fresh  and  perfect. 


24  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

The  second  side  of  the  Codex  has  to  be  treated  in  four  divi 
sions  or  chapters,  the  first  of  which  includes  pages  15  to  18. 
For  numerical  reasons  which  will  appear,  this  chapter  must 
probably  have  begun,  however,  at  least  one  page  further  to 
the  left. 

These  four  pages  are  laid  out  with  three  main  divisions, 
upper,  middle  and  lower.  Too  much  of  the  upper  section  is 
erased  for  any  comment  other  than  that  its  arrangement  seems 
to  have  been  parallel  in  all  respects  with  the  middle  section. 
This  latter  shows  three  subsections,  the  backgrounds  in  some 
cases  being  red,*  containing  each  a  picture  (probably  of  a  god 
or  a  human  figure  in  every  instance),  surmounted  by  a  black 
and  a  red  numeral  and  by  six  glyphs,  in  double  column.  This 
gives  12  subsections  for  the  four  pages,  which  we  may  refer 
to  respectively  as  15-a,  b,  c,  etc.  Of  the  initial  pairs  of  glyphs 
in  each  subsection  many  are  complete,  and  no  section  is  left 
without  the  correct  traces  of  the  corresponding  glyph  for  one 
or  other  of  the  positions ;  so  that  although  5  of  the  24  glyphs 
are  totally  erased,  we  may  safely  restore  them  all.  Other  fea 
tures  of  the  comparative  use  and  frequency  of  the  glyphs  on 
these  pages  have  already  been  given. 

At  the  top  of  each  picture  is  found  a  black  and  a  red  nu 
meral.  These  form  the  consecutive  black  "  counters  "  or  inter 
val  numbers,  and  the  corresponding  red  day  numbers  of  sub 
divided  tonalamatls,  so  common  in  Dres.  and  Tro.-Cort.  It 
is  customary  to  find  these  tonalamatls  divided  into  fifths  or 
fourths,  52  or  65  days  respectively  —  four  or  five  trecenas. 
At  the  53rd  or  66th  day  the  initial  red  number  is  again  reached, 
and  the  calculation  is  (by  hypothesis)  repeated,  starting  again 
at  the  left  with  a  new  day-sign  below  the  first.  Such  a  column 
is  seen  in  the  lower  part  of  page  17,  where  we  find  6  Oc,  Ik,  Ix ; 
these  are  to  be  completed  by  restoring  below  an  erased  Cimi 

*  Dr.  Forstemann  (Comm.  z.  Par.  Mayahds.}  speaks  of  the  back 
ground  to  the  central  figure  on  page  16  as  black,  instead  of  red ;  he 
also  describes  the  number  columns  as  made  up  of  red  and  black  num 
erals  only.  There  are  many  similar  errors  in  his  Commentary,  due  to 
his  ignorance  of  the  colors,  and  to  the  obscurity  of  the  photographic 
reproductions. 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE)  PEREZ   CODEX  25 

and  Ezanab,  completing  the  260  days  and  bringing  us  around 
again  to  6  Oc.  The  total  of  all  the  black  "  counters  "  in  any 
series  must  always  be  some  multiple  of  13,  usually  52  or  65, 
as  stated.  And  since  each  "  counter  "  is  the  interval  between 
its  adjoining  red  numbers,  wherever  a  red  and  a  black  number 
are  given,  the  other  red  number,  whether  before  or  after,  can 
always  be  filled  in. 

No  traces  of  this  initial  column  appear  for  the  series  in  the 
middle  division,  and  several  of  the  numerals  are  also  erased. 
Two  obscurities  must  be  cleared  up  before  trying  to  fill  out  the 
series.  On  page  16  right  is  a  partly  erased  black  numeral, 
which  from  the  traces  may  be  either  10  or  11.  Taking  it  as  10, 
we  have  13  plus  10  equals  an  erased  red  10;  plus  5  (on  page 
17)  equals  the  red  2  below  the  5.  This  verifies  so  far.  But 
we  next  find —  plus  5  equals  8,  which  is  of  course  incorrect. 
An  inspection  of  the  MS.  and  the  photographs  reveals  a  red 
dish  spot  (or  perhaps  even  three  such  spots)  in  the  extreme  up 
per  right  corner  of  the  picture  space,  17-a,  and  also  a  dark  spot 
under  the  black  5  in  17-b.  It  is  possible  that  the  separated  red 
dots  (one  doubtful)  are  to  be  read  together  as  3;  or  that  the 
red  dots  under  the  5  are  to  be  disregarded  in  the  count  (just  as 
is  the  red  8  on  the  next  page,  18-a),  and  the  red  number  for 
17-a  found  in  the  upper  right,  above  the  seated  figure.  If 
the  red  number  in  17-a  is  3,  the  two  numbers  in  16-c  must  be  11. 
Or  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  spot  under  the  5  in  17-b  belongs 
to  it,  making  6  instead  of  5,  which  figures  out.  The  final  result 
is  the  same,  as  we  have  either  10  and  6,  or  11  and  5,  in  these  two 
places,  and  either  reaches  properly  the  clear  red  8  in  17-b. 

In  18-a  we  find  black  26,  with  a  small  red  8  below,  and  a 
large  red  13  in  the  usual  place  at  the  side.  The  red  8  will  have 
to  be  disregarded,  as  not  part  of  the  series,  which  requires  13, 
and  nothing  else. 

We  may  now  possibly  set  down  the  series  as  follows,  using 
small  figures  above  the  the  line  for  the  black  counters,  and  put 
ting  in  parentheses  all  numbers  restored : 

(6)39(6)(2)5761311(H)53585(13)26131°10,  or  else 
(6)39<6>(2)5761310(10)S2685(13)26131010 


26  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

This  leaves  us  the  black  number  at  the  beginning,  in  15-a, 
and  both  numbers  at  the  end,  18-c,  still  not  filled  in.  Adding 
together  all  the  counters  we  get  82,  plus  at  least  the  two  missing 
black  numbers,  one  at  each  end.  If  the  total  were  104,  we 
might  expect  it  to  have  been  comprised  within  the  four  sub 
sections  15-a  to  18-a.  But  104  is  not  a  tonalamatl  fraction. 
130  days,  although  a  tonalamatl  half,  is  an  unknown  division, 
and  would  hardly  get  into  the  space.  If  we  begin  the  series 
in  the  upper  division  of  the  page  (as  occurs  in  Dres.)  and  come 
around  to  the  middle  division,  the  probabilities  would  require 
that  it  displayed  a  full  series  of  260  days,  and  again  also  that 
it  began  to  the  left  of  page  15.  The  probabilities  of  this  series 
as  it  is,  therefore,  indicate  at  least  a  page  14  to  the  left,  ar 
ranged  like  the  other  four,  and  forming  one  chapter  with  them. 

We  have  now  to  deal  with  the  puzzling  numeral  columns, 
in  alternating  colors,  found  to  the  left  of  each  subsection  of 
the  upper  and  middle  divisions  —  24  columns  in  all.  These 
have  been  referred  to  at  some  length  in  the  preliminary  dis 
cussion  of  the  colors,  and  there  is  little  more  that  can  be  said. 
As  there  said,  the  entire  reason  for  alternating  the  colors  can 
not  be  certainly  assumed.  Alternation  of  color  occurs  not  only 
where  it  is  needed  to  distinguish  bars,  but  also  where  we  have 
only  lines  of  dots,  which  are  of  course  self -separating.  And  to 
say  that  it  is  only  for  artistic  purposes  is  a  mere  begging  of  the 
question.  Only  four  or  five  of  these  columns  are  complete, 
and  a  footing  of  the  numbers  in  each  gives  us  varying  amounts 
from  113  to  153,  and  tells  us  nothing.  On  the  parts  that  are 
left  we  six  times  have  a  Chuen  £^3  with  a  black  number 
apparently  belonging  to  it  (perhaps  a  multiplier),  and  also  once 
a  double  Chuen,  as  in  Tro.-Cort.  The  use  of  the  red  &a/-sign, 
or  20,  is  frequent. 

The  lower  division  of  these  pages  was  also  subdivided,  into 
four  sections  on  each,  which  we  may  refer  to  as  d,  e,  f,  g. 
Each  contains  a  picture,  with  black  and  red  numerals  as  above, 
surmounted  by  four  glyphs  only.  The  pictures  are  all  quite 
incomplete ;  neither  is  there  anything  to  add  to  what  has  been 
already  said  of  the  glyphs. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  27 

In  the  middle  of  page  17  one  tonalamatl  ends,  with  a  red  6, 
and  another  begins,  also  with  6.  The  second  starts  with  the 
day  6  Oc,  is  divided  into  fifths,  and  the  initial  column  must 
have  been  in  full:  6  Oc,  Ik,  Ix,  Cimi,  Ezanab.  The  restora 
tion  of  the  series  gives:  6222<15  in  two  9ta«es> (4)  10146.  This 
however  only  gives  a  total  of  51  for  the  black  counters.  There 
is  space  to  the  right  for  another  section,  but  whatever  may 
have  been  written  there  has  entirely  disappeared.  The  last 
three  numbers  146  seem  unmistakable,  the  ••••  especially  so. 
If  we  regard  the  last  6  as  an  error  for  5,  and  then  restore  16 
in  section  18-g,  it  would  give  the  necessary  52.  This  is  the  one 
passage  in  the  Codex  where  I  can  see  no  way  but  to  assume  a 
mistake  in  the  writing;  for  1  plus  4  does  not  equal  6,  and  un 
less  for  some  entirely  unknown  reason  the  error  is  clear. 

The  preceding  tonalamatl  may  have  been  divided  either  into 
52-  or  65-day  periods.  If  the  period  was  52,  it  must  have 
begun  with  an  initial  column  on  page  15,  right  side.  In  this 
event  it  would  be  restored  as  follows : 

(initial  6)<19in  two  stages)  (12)65712(12  in  two  stages)  ( 11  )86? 

giving  52.  In  this  case  a  third  tonalamatl  must  have  begun 
somewhere  to  the  left,  and  ended  on  the  erased  right  side  of 
page  15. 

A  different  restoration  would  carry  the  initial  column  back 
to  the  extreme  edge  of  page  15,  when  we  would  have  this: 

(initial  6)<2>(8)8311(1)(H  'w°  stages)  (12)65712(12  two  stages)  (  1 1  ) 86 

giving  65. 

To  choose  between  these  two  would  be  mere  guessing. 

The  well-known  pages  19  and  20  come  next.  Together 
they  make  four  compartments,  up  and  down  the  full  length 
of  the  pages,  two  with  red  and  two  with  black  backgrounds. 
Each  is,  or  rather  was,  preceded  by  a  column  of  13  "  year- 
bearers."  The  left  column  on  each  page  I  have  restored,  al 
though  no  traces  of  it  are  left.  But  apart  from  its  manifest 
necessity,  as  part  of  the  series,  if  the  width  of  the  red  ground 
on  page  20  (see  the  photographs)  is  measured,  it  will  be  found 
to  be  just  the  correct  proportion,  and  part  of  the  straight  left 


28  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

edge  of  the  red  can  still  be  seen,  just  left  of  the  rod  in  the 
hand  of  the  mummy-figure,  and  leaving  just  room  for  the 
Ezanab  column.  In  the  colored  plates  I  have  only  shown  12 
instead  of  13  day-signs  in  each  column,  but  a  measurement  of 
the  space  above  and  below  shows  that  the  missing  four  are  to 
be  placed  at  the  top  and  not  at  the  bottom.  These  two  pages 
therefore  have  application  in  some  way  to  52  solar  years,  be 
ginning  with  1  Lamat  and  ending  with  13  Akbal  (Votan). 

These  "  year-bearers  "  are  those  of  the  Tzental  instead  of 
the  Yucatecan  system,  as  described  by  Landa,  and  on  these  two 
pages  rests,  so  far  as  regards  known  subject-matter,  the  assign 
ment  of  the  Codex  Perez  to  the  Palenque  rather  than  to  the 
northern  Maya  district.  It  is  thus  to  be  considered  with  the 
Inscriptions  of  that  region,  and  with  the  Dresden  Codex.* 
And  in  accord  with  what  is  known  of  the  state  of  the  different 
parts  of  the  country  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  and  of  the 
history  of  the  break-up  and  extinction  of  the  Maya  empire,  it 
must  be  assigned  the  greater  antiquity  on  that  account. 

It  is  probable  that  pages  19  and  20  had  no  text  passages. 

Pages  21  and  22  again,  judging  from  the  coloring  and  the 
arrangement,  seem  to  form  a  pair.  Each  had  on  the  upper 
part  probably  five  rows  of  glyphs,  some  70  in  all,  of  which  only 
10  or  12  are  at  all  recognizable.  Contrary  to  all  the  pages 
hitherto  discussed,  it  may  be  that  these  glyphs  are  to  be  read 
from  right  to  left.  The  faces  in  these  all  look  to  the  right, 
and  the  customary  prefixes  are  all  on  the  right.  In  classifying 
these  glyphs,  therefore,  they  must  be  all  reversed. 

The  greater  part  of  page  21  is  framed  in  and  divided  up 
by  green  bands,  evidently  for  water,  two  branches  of  which, 
after  crossing  a  constellation  band  near  the  bottom,  end  one 
in  falling  torrents,  the  other  in  a  circle  surrounding  a  kin-sign, 
(TT1|  .  the  sun,  and  itself  surrounded  by  four  dragon's  heads, 
all  figured  in  the  midst  of  the  torrents.  Below  this  symbol 

*  Where  to  place  the  Tro.-Cort.,  in  view  of  the  apparent  Kan, 
Muluc  Ix,  Cauac  years  indicated  on  pages  34~37,  and  the  13  Cumhu 
immediately  next  to  13  Ahau  on  page  73  (13  Ahau  13  Cumhu  falling 
only  possibly  in  a  year  12  Lamat)  I  am  not  ready  to  say. 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  29 

is  the  open  mouth  of  a  dragon,  towards  which  is  looking  and 
pointing  a  black- faced  figure,  of  the  god  D,  the  Ancient  of 
Days,  described  by  Schellhas  as  the  moon  and  night  god.  To 
the  left  of  the  torrents  is  a  figure,  nearly  erased,  but  with  the 
wristlets  characteristic  of  the  god  of  death,  and  holding  in  the 
hand  a  torch.  The  glyph  frffiffi  occurs  written  in  the  torrents, 
at  the  left  side.  p)H@ 

The  green  bands  divide  the  middle  of  the  page  into  six 
compartments  containing,  so  far  as  not  totally  erased,  65  day- 
signs,  in  columns  of  five.  All  my  efforts  to  relate  these  signs 
either  to  each  other  or  to  any  other  series  in  the  codices,  have 
so  far  been  fruitless.  The  upper  seven  columns  have  each  a 
black  numeral  beneath,  running  from  right  to  left,  123356 
and  the  dot  of  another  6. 

Each  of  the  columns  of  five  day-signs  forms  a  closed  cir 
cuit  returning  into  itself.  In  the  upper  row  the  1st  and  6th 
columns  show  successive  days  8  apart  in  order;  columns  2,  3, 
4,  5  and  7  are  16  apart  in  order.  The  1st  in  the  lower  row  is 
at  intervals  of  8,  the  2nd  and  5th  at  intervals  of  16.  The  3rd 
column  is,  with  the  4th,  an  exception,  the  intervals  being  suc 
cessively  8,  4,  4,  8,  16.  That  this  is  probably  not  a  scribal 
error  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  same  series,  though  begin 
ning  with  different  days,  occurs  in  both  columns.  The  6th  and 
possible  7th  columns  of  the  lower  part  are  indeterminable. 

We  thus  have  three  rounds  of  5  times  8,  or  40  days ;  seven 
rounds  of  5  times  16,  or  80  days ;  two  irregular  rounds  of  40 
days.  These  are  not  such  columns  as  could  form  the  beginning 
of  a  series  of  tonalamatl  fifths,  in  which  the  successive  days 
come  12  apart.  So  that  this  section  must  be  left  unexplained.* 

*  Mr.  Bowditch  suggests  to  me  that  the  numbers  1  2  3  3  5  6  6  are 
to  be  read  with  each  of  the  day  signs  in  their  respective  columns, 
and,  being  placed  in  the  middle,  may  apply  both  to  the  upper  and  lower 
sets.  The  strongest  objection  I  can  see  to  this  is  that  the  numbers 
are  black,  instead  of  the  usual  red.  In  this  case,  instead  of  inter 
vals  of  8  and  16,  giving  rounds  of  5x8  =  40  and  5x16  =  80  days,  we 
would  have  intervals  of  156  and  208  (from  1  Ymix  to  1  Muluc,  etc.), 
giving  rounds  of  780  and  1040  days  respectively.  Or,  if  read  upwards, 
we  would  have  52  and  104  day  intervals  (1  Ben  to  1  Chicchan,  etc.), 
and  rounds  of  260  and  520  clays.  But  whichever  be  the  case,  the  page 
is  sui  generis,  and  its  why  is  still  beyond  us. 


30  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

At  the  right  of  page  21  begins  a  solid  red  background 
which  probably  extended  right  across  page  22.  Two  standing 
spotted  green  figures  appear  on  page  21 ;  seven  seated  figures, 
one  green  spotted,  on  page  22. 

Page  22  is  crossed  by  a  winding  dragon  whose  body  is 
covered  by  the  "  constellation  band."  A  narrow  green  band 
also  winds  across  the  page,  inclosing  two  of  the  upper  figures. 
Below  the  dragon  and  this  green  band  are  seen,  seated  above 
the  open  mouths  of  two  erect  dragons,  two  figures  in  conversa 
tion,  each  bearing  various  insignia  of  the  death  god.  A  very 
curious  cartouche  outline,  partly  erased,  at  the  lower  right, 
incloses  what  seems  to  be  13  Ahau,  3,  6,  the  right  hand  dot 
of  the  3  being  erased. 

On  pages  23  and  24  the  brilliant  backgrounds  of  the  pre 
ceding  pages  disappear,  and  we  have  two  pages,  to  be  read  to 
gether,  of  glyphs,  day-signs  and  small  figures,  finely  and  spar 
ingly  illuminated  with  the  usual  four  colors.  The  body  of  the 
dragon  is  apparently  continuous  from  page  21,  and  crosses 
these  pages  entirely  with  the  constellation  band,  displayed  along 
its  full  length. 

The  upper  part  of  these  two  pages  contained  originally  91 
glyphs,  perhaps  to  be  read  from  right  to  left,  the  same  as  21 
and  22.  The  faces  look  to  the  right,  the  usual  prefixes  and  the 
few  numerals  are  also  on  the  right  of  their  respective  com 
pounds.  Many  of  the  glyphs  are  the  same  as  those  on  pages 
2  to  11,  reversed  right  for  left.  Glyph  23-a-ll  should  be  spe 
cially  noted.  At  first  sight  the  numeral  prefix,  6,  appears  to 
belong,  postfixed,  to  glyph  23-a-17.  But  on  investigation  we 
find  the  same  compound,  a  ya.v-chuen  with  ^mJ  prefix,  also 
at  21-a-8  and  24-a-26,  in  each  case  with  the  6  attached.  The 
(555)  affix  just  below  this  number  6  is  also  plainly  a  prefix  to 
glyph  23-a-12;  so  that  glyph  23-a-ll  must  be  read 
and  include  the  6  as  prefix.  At  24-a-26,  j| 
the  same  glyph  is  written  left  to  right. 

There  are  also  a  few  other  glyphs  on  these  pages  which 
cannot  be  regarded  as  right  to  left.  Such  for  instance,  as 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  31 

at  23-a-19  and  24-a-17.    In  this  glyph  the  affix 


v.  .  .  ..j  at  the  side  is  properly  a  prefix  (perhaps  the  posses 
sive),  and  I  do  not  recall  any  instance  of  its  use  as  a  postfix. 
In  the  affixes,  the  superfix  and  prefix  positions  may  as  a  gen 
eral  rule  be  regarded  as  wholly  identical  ;  also  the  subfix  and 
postfix  positions.  But  also  as  a  general  rule  the  two  pairs  are 
I  believe  not  to  be  interchanged,  any  more  than  we  interchange 
prefixes  and  endings  in  English;  this  rule  is  not  universal  for 
all  affixes,  as  some  seem  able  to  go  anywhere,  but  it  is  one  I 
have  always  regarded  in  my  glyph  classifying.  As  to 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  this  is  a  symmetrical  glyph  and 
as  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  glyphs  were  equally  legible 
to  the  Maya  reader  written  in  either  direction,  it  may  well  be 
regarded  as  unimportant,  and  not  to  be  rated  even  as  an  error. 
is  a  still  stronger  similar  case.  Here  the  wing  j^^f 
affix  to  the  right  is  certainly  a  postfix,  the  superfix 

in  the  usual  left  to  right  order,  (JJ0  and  the  main  element 
written  left  to  right,  as  in  all  its  other  instances.    And  *" 
is  again  in  point. 

The  iace-tun  compounds  on  these  pages,  and  also  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  manuscript,  should  be  particularly  noted. 

Below  the  constellation  band,  inscribed  on  a  wavy  green 
band  (the  waters  of  space  ?)  are  seven  repetitions  of 
or  the  sun  glyph  [F"o"l)  within  the  shields.*  Between 
each  appeared  probably  two  black  8's.  The  sun-shields  are 
about  to  be  seized  by  different  animals,  dragon,  tortoise,  bird, 
etc.,  a  seeming  evident  suggestion  of  either  an  eclipse,  or  the 
passage  of  the  sun  into  some  zodiacal  sign.  Another  series  of 
seven  sun-shields,  on  the  green  band,  separated  by  numeral  8's, 
and  attacked  by  animals  and  a  skeleton,  crosses  the  lower  part 
of  the  pages. 

Between  these  two  bands  we  find  a  series  of  columns  of 
five  day-signs  each  preceded  by  red  numerals.  Allowing  for 
the  space  erased  I  have  restored  the  last  column  to  the  right, 

*  I  have  retained  the  usual  term  "  shields  "  for  the  flaring  forms 
which  embrace  the  sun  glyph,  though  without  accepting  its  appropriate 
ness.  They  might  with  equal  likelihood  be  conventionalized  wings. 


32  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ  CODEX 

and  part  of  the  preceding.  This  gives  12  columns  only,  where 
as  at  least  13  are  required.  There  may  have  been  a  12th  col 
umn  to  the  left  of  page  23,  where  there  is  just  the  proper 
space  for  this,*  leaving  the  dragon's  body  to  curve  above  the 
column  so  as  to  pass  to  page  22.  The  scries  may  have  con 
tinued  on  across  page  25 ;  13  columns  on  pages  23,  24,  and  7 
more  filling  page  25,  would  make  a  full  cycle  of  20  columns. 
And  in  this  connexion  it  should  be  noted  that  the  dragon's  body 
with  constellation  band  goes  almost  to  the  edge  of  page  24 
with  no  sign  of  ending  or  turning,  such  as  might  be  expected 
if  the  chapter  ends  here.  And  if  the  constellation  dragon 
continues  over  page  25,  the  column  series  may  well  have  done 
the  same. 

Before  discussing  this  series  it  will  be  of  advantage  to  re 
view  what  the  Codex  gives  us  on  the  question  of  reading  left 
to  right  or  right  to  left. 

First,  in  both  the  Dresden  and  Tro.-Cort.  the  glyph  faces 
look  to  the  left ;  and,  as  shown  by  the  calculations,  reading  is 
from  left  to  right,  with  a  very  few  possible  exceptions,  such  as 
the  tables  on  Dres.  24,  64,  69,  etc. 

In  the  Perez,  as  shown  by  the  tonalamatls  on  15  to  18,  the 
52  year-bearers  on  19  and  20,  and  the  katun-series  on  2  to  12, 
the  general  direction  of  the  reading  is  also  left  to  right. 

Above  or  below  each  of  the  red  number  columns  of  these 
pages  23,  24,  is  to  be  found  a  blue  number.  These  numbers 
make  a  katun-series,  starting  with  4,  decreasing  by  2,  if  we 
read  it  left  to  right.  It  is  not,  to  be  sure,  accompanied  by  the 
customary  Ahau-sign,  (°M°).  but,  taken  in  connexion  with  the 
marked  parallelism  of  the  glyphs,  face-tun  glyphs  and  also 
others,  on  these  two  pages  with  those  on  pages  2  to  11,  already 
discussed,  the  possibility  that  a  katun-series  is  a  part  of  this 
subject-matter  must  be  considered. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  glyphs  in  the  upper  part  of  all  four 

*  Dr.  Forstemann  ignores  the  space  on  the  right  of  page  24,  and 
restores  two  columns  to  the  left  of  page  23  in  order  to  make  up  the 
thirteen  columns;  but,  as  shown  by  the  edges  of  the  pages  in  the 
photographs,  one  column  restored  in  each  place  will  just  fill  the  obliter 
ated  space. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  33 

pages  21  to  24  face  to  the  right,  and,  as  already  set  out  in 
detail,  are  practically  all  written  in  reverse  position  as  regards 
their  prefixes,  etc.  And  so  also  does  the  Eb-glyph  in  the  day- 
columns  we  are  now  considering  face  to  the  right.  These  col 
umns,  unlike  those  on  page  21,  which  include  all  of  the  20  day- 
signs,  only  include  5  of  the  day-signs:  Kan,  Lamat,  Eb,  Cib 
and  Ahau ;  Eb  being  the  only  non-symmetrical  one  of  these. 

We  have  thus  quite  strong  evidence,  especially  as  provided 
by  the  position  of  the  prefixes,  for  a  right  to  left  reading,  op 
posed  by  the  direction  of  this  katun-number  series  —  if  it  be 
one.  In  Egyptian  writing,  of  course,  the  direction  of  the  read 
ing  changes  with  the  facing  of  the  figures. 

To  return  now  to  the  columns  themselves,  all  the  day-signs 
in  any  one  column  have  each  the  same  red  numeral,  so  that  we 
have :  8  Cib,  8  Ahau,  8  Kan,  8  Lamat,  8  Eb;  and  so  on.  The 
red  numerals  to  each  column  also  decrease  by  2  towards  the 
right,  pari  passu  with  the  blue  numerals.  If  we  read  each 
column  downwards,  it  will  form  a  closed  circuit  or  round,  re 
turning  into  itself,  with  intervals  of  104  days,  from  8  Cib  to 
8  Ahau,  etc.,  and  again  from  8  Eb  back  to  8  Cib.  But  if  we 
next  try  to  go  to  the  next  column,  the  series  breaks,  for  from 
8  Eb  to  6  Lamat  is  only  76  days.  We  get  a  like  break  whether 
we  read  upward  or  downward,  or  right  to  left.  Taking  the 
columns  separately  then,  the  entire  series  (whether  made  up 
of  13,  20  or  any  other  number  of  columns)  cannot  be  made  to 
read  in  one  regular  series,  with  a  constant  interval  between  the 
successive  days  of  the  whole. 

But,  if  we  restore  two  columns,  making  13  columns,  and 
then  read  horizontally  across,  either  right  to  left,  or  left  to 
right,  one  line  after  another,  the  first  day  of  the  second  line 
follows  the  last  of  the  first,  and  after  going  through  the  whole 
65  terms,  we  return  again  from  the  last  of  the  last  line  to  the 
first  of  the  first —  always  with  a  constant  interval.  In  other 
words,  this  section  could  be  written  around  a  wheel.  If  we 
read  left  to  right,  the  distance  from  (10  Kan)  to  8  Cib,  etc., 
is  232  days;  232x65  =  15,080.  Or  if  from  right  to  left,*  the 
*  Dr.  Seler's  reading;  Gesammelte  Abhandlungen,  I,  515. 


34  COMMENTARY   ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

interval  from  (12  Lamat)  to  1  Cib,  etc.,  is  28  days;  28  x  13  = 
364,  x  5  =  1820.  That  both  of  these  products  are  multiples  of 
260  is  a  truism,  and  cannot  in  any  way  require  us  to  see  a 
tonalamatl  reckoning  as  the  basis  of  this  passage.  Nor  is  each 
separate  clay-column  a  tonalamatl  in  fifths,  as  so  often  found. 

Finally,  if  we  should  assume  that  the  series  went  on  across 
page  25,  to  a  full  katun-round  of  20  terms,  the  circuit  would 
be  broken;  line  2  would  not  regularly  follow  line  1,  and  so  on. 
The  probabilities  then,  as  derived  from  the  succession  of  the 
days,  seem  almost  conclusive  that  this  is  a  section  of  65  terms, 
to  be  read  horizontally,  in  whichever  direction.  And  then, 
since  the  subdivision  of  15,080  days  (or  1820,  if  read  right  to 
left)  into  65  terms,  necessarily  gives  us  successive  day-numbers 
decreasing  (or  increasing)  by  2,  the  likeness  to  the  katun-series 
may  be  only  apparent  —  a  simple  truism.  Or,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  view  of  the  glyph  similarities  (a  point  which  I  think 
should  always  be  given  close  attention),  there  may  be  some 
relation  to  the  katun-series  —  all  in  spite  of  the  right-left  or 
left-right  difficulties. 

What  part  the  blue  *  number  series  plays,  I  cannot  say. 
Dr.  Seler,f  suggests  that  they  are  "  corrections,"  to  set  each 
term  ahead  20  days.  This  states  a  fact,  but  does  not  give  any 
explanation.  Each  blue  number  is  6  less  than  its  red  column, 
and  7  Kan  is  of  course  20  days  later  than  13  Kan. 

*  The  blue  is  a  true  blue,  quite   distinct   from  the   turquoise  blue 
elsewhere,  and  is  found  in  the  case  of  these  numbers  only. 

t  Gcsammeltc  Abhandlungen,  I,  515;    "  Zur  mexik.  Chronologic." 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  35 

THE    MAYA    GLYPHS 

UP  to  date  our  knowledge  of  the  meanings  of  the  glyphs  is 
still  to  all  intents  and  purposes  limited  to  the  direct  tradition 
we  have  through  Landa,  and  the  deductions  immediately  in 
volved  in  these.  We  know  the  day  and  month  signs,  the  num 
bers,  including  0  and  20,  four  units  of  the  archaic  calendar 
count  (the  day,  tun,  katun  and  cycle),  the  cardinal  point  signs, 
the  negative  particle.  We  have  not  fully  solved  the  uinal  or 
month  sign,  which  seems  to  be  chuen  on  the  monuments  and  a 
cauac,  or  chuen,  in  the  manuscripts.  We  are  able  to  identify 
what  must  be  regarded  as  metaphysical  or  esoteric  applications 
of  certain  glyphs  in  certain  places,  such  as  the  face  numerals.* 
But  every  one  of  these  points  is  either  deducible  directly  by 
necessary  mathematical  calculation,  or  else  from  the  names  of 
certain  signs  given  by  Landa  in  his  day  and  month  list,  and 
then  found  in  other  combinations,  such  as  yax,  kin,  etc.  That 
we  have  as  many  of  the  points  as  we  have,  and  still  cannot 
form  from  them  the  key  —  that  we  cannot  read  the  glyphs 
—  is  a  constant  wonder ;  but  a  fact  nevertheless. 

The  innumerable  efforts  to  identify  the  glyphs  by  their  su 
perficial  appearance,  calling  the  banded  headdress  a  "  pottery 
decoration,"  and  explaining  the  face-glyph  of  the  North  there 
by,  because  in  Maya  xaman  is  north  and  xamach  a  tortilla  dish 
(to  say  nothing  of  others  still  more  fanciful,  by  a  host  of 
writers),  have  broken  down,  as  was  to  be  expected.  I  mention 
this  instance  because  it  illustrates  fully  the  results  of  super 
ficial  analysis,  united  with  a  seeming  ineradicable  tendency 
even  among  those  most  able  students  who  have  added  the 
most  to  our  stock  of  Maya  knowledge  (among  whom  Dr. 
Brinton  was  certainly  one  of  the  foremost),  to  treat  these 
glyphs  as  carelessly  done,  to  disregard  the  differences  between 
manifest  variants,  or  else  to  talk  freely,  whenever  a  passage 

*  The  Tibetan  use  of  symbolical  words  in  place  of  numerals  is  worth 
noting  here,  even  though  we  do  not  know  the  Maya  face  numerals  well 
enough  as  yet  for  any  comparison.  See  Csoma  de  Koros,  Tibetan 
Grammar,  Calcutta,  1824,  pp.  155  et  seq.;  also  Ph.  fid.  Foucaux, 
Grammaire  Tibetaine,  Paris,  1858,  pp.  157  et  seq. 


36  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

does  not  fit  the  explanation  which  is  being  worked  out,  of 
scribal  errors. 

In  the  first  place,  if  these  glyphs  are  to  be  interpreted  prim 
arily  by  the  Yucatecan  Maya  dialect  (one  in  which  we  have 
most  ample  printed  and  MS.  lexicographic  material),  and  if 
in  that  dialect  no  other  words  at  all  resembling  .vaman  and 
xamach  are  found,  as  we  are  told,  then  (if  the  Mayas  named 
the  north  star,  or  the  North,  by  a  pun  on  a  tortilla  dish) 
wherever  this  banded  headdress  is  found,  we  must  assume  the 
text  to  be  treating  either  of  the  North,  or  of  tortillas.  That 
might  safely  be  left  to  break  down  of  its  own  weight ;  but  we 
shall  also  see  that  the  explanation  is  given  in  total  disregard 
of  manifest,  important  variants.  This  banded  headdress  ap 
pears  ornamenting  at  least 
five  separate  and  distinct 
faces ;  one  a  wholly  human  face,  the  others  with  various  other 
definite  characteristics,  the  most  frequent  and  prominent  of 
which  are  the  monkey-like  face  and  mouth  we  see  in  the 
glyph  for  the  north,  and  a  sort  of  bird's  plumage  cov 
ering  the  back  of  the  head.  These  two  are  separate, 


are  never  combined,  and  must  be  classified  rigidly  apart.  We 
have  therefore  three  elements,  the  monkey  face,  the  plumage 
covering  (if  we  may  call  it  so),  and  the  banded  headdress.  It 
is  obvious  that  while  the  monkey  face  may  be  specific  of  the 
North,  the  bands  are  not  specific  at  all,  but  general. 

It  is  with  the  greatest  diffidence  that  I  suggest  any  interpre 
tations  on  my  own  part  as  yet,  but  it  is  of  course  certain  that 
the  distinction  of  masculine  and  feminine  existed  in  the  spoken 
language,  and  it  must  exist  somewhere  in  the  glyphs.  And  it 
will  have  to  be  a  prefix,  not  a  postfix ;  for  what  I  may  call  the 
syntax  of  glyph  formation  must  follow  that  of  the  speech. 
At  the  bottom  of  Dres.  61  and  62  are  seven  identical  Oc-glyphs 
with  subfix,  and  with  prefixes.  Five  of  these  prefixes  are  faces 
with  the  woman's  curl,  recognized  on  the  figured  illustrations. 
One  is  a  face  with  the  banded  headdress.  Remembering  that 
this  headdress  occurs  not  infrequently  on  a  plain  human  face 
with  no  other  characteristic,  it  is  not  a  far  guess  that  it  may 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  37 

have  denoted  a  freeman,  a  lord,  entitled  to  such  a  headdress. 
In  this  event  it  may  on  the  one  hand  serve  as  a  simple  mascu 
line  definitive,  the  prefix  ah-,  and  on  the  other,  to  attach  the 
idea  of  lordship  to  other  glyphs  with  which  it  is  incorporated, 
as :  the  North  Star,  or  region,  the  Lord  of  the  Firmament. 

This  illustration  serves  to  show  what  seems  to  me  an  essen 
tial  preliminary  of  the  work  we  have  in  hand,  and  the  part  to 
which  I  have  so  far  devoted  most  effort.  The  glyphs  must  be 
determined,  compared  and  classified,  and  what  I  have  called 
the  "syntax"  of  their  composition,  studied.  The  particles  and 
their  positions,  the  various  incorporated  elements,  are  of  the 
utmost  importance,  though  they  are  very  frequently  ignored. 
They  are  the  written  picture  of  the  spirit  of  the  spoken  lan 
guage.  The  task  I  have  most  looked  forward  to  in  this  con 
nexion  has  of  course  been  with  the  Dresden,  but  having  started 
upon  the  Perez  for  the  reasons  I  have  given,  it  was  a  smaller 
task  in  itself,  and  could  be  brought  to  completion  within  less 
time,  while  serving  as  part  of  the  larger  work.  As  the  deter 
mination  and  classification  of  the  glyphs  had  to  proceed  all  as 
one  work,  it  has  enabled  me  not  only  to  complete  my  Index 
for  this  codex,  but  also  to  print  the  text  in  type,  and  to  verify 
and  bring  out  such  facts  regarding  the  color  questions  as  was 
possible  to  do  —  both  of  them  stages  needed  in  the  general 
work.  In  doing  it  I  have  studied  with  my  hands  as  well  as 
with  eyes,  and  I  have  been  well  repaid.  The  actual  labor  has 
not  been  small,  but  it  has  been  worth  it  all  if  only  to  see  before 
the  eyes  something  of  what  this  Codex  must  have  been  when 
fresh  and  new.  For  as  I  have  said,  while  in  my  colored  restor 
ation  I  may  have  made  some  mistakes  of  eye,  for  which  the 
photographs  will  be  a  check,  I  have  guessed  nothing. 

The  classification  of  the  glyphs  meets  of  course  with  some 
difficulties  in  detail,  but  it  can  readily  be  cast  into  a  quite 
simple  general  outline.  Something  over  2000  different  com 
pound  forms  are  found  in  the  three  codices.  The  simple  ele 
ments  composing  these  are  perhaps  350  in  number,  and  may  be 
divided  broadly  into  main  elements  and  affixes  or  particles. 
First  of  course  come  day  and  month  signs,  which,  with  kin, 


38  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

tun,  kal,  and  a  few  marked  variants,  use  up  50  numbers.  Next 
will  come  the  faces,  about  75  simple  elements.  Next  the  ani 
mal  and  bird  heads  and  figures,  about  50  numbers.  Next  the 
hands,  crosses,  etc.,  and  the  list  of  conventional  or  geometric 
forms,  another  75.  Then  some  75  particles. 

The  cards  required  for  the  first  50  numbers,  including  only 
compounds  formed  from  day-signs  and  excluding  day-signs 
used  simply  as  such,  amount  to  practically  one  half  of  the 
number  required  for  the  whole  index.  Certain  elements,  not 
ably  the  kin,  the  tun,  the  monkey-face  with  banded  headdress, 
already  referred  to,  the  face  with  tau-eye,  the  yax,  the  cross, 
produce  a  great  number  of  compounds  —  a  fact  of  note,  as  it  is 
evident  that  the  number  of  compounds,  having  due  regard  to 
our  limited  material,  is  an  index  to  the  relative  position  of  the 
idea  in  the  Mayan  vocabularies.  Some  of  the  day-signs  pro 
duce  practically  no  compounds,  others  a  great  many.  The 
compounds  fall  readily  into  a  system  of  primary  and  secondary 
derivatives,  by  which  their  relations  may  be  easily  studied, 
and  their  proportions  recognized. 

Coming  to  the  distinguishing  of  variants,  one  first  meets 
the  fact  that  the  three  codices  differ.  The  writing  of  the  Dres 
den  and  Perez  is  regular  and  accurate,  the  Perez  exceedingly 
so.  Every  different  variant  must  here  be  accounted  for.  In 
Tro.-Cort.  the  writing  is  crude  and  careless,  so  that  we  have 
many  evident  abbreviations  which  are  not  genuine  variants. 
In  the  next  place,  certain  regular  differences  occur  in  this  or 
that  glyph  or  particle,  between  the  forms  of  the  different 
manuscripts.  Thus  the  Perez  uses  (TO?)  a"d  the  others  f0mQ] 
and  so  on.  A  comparison  of  the  compounds  shows  that  these 
must  be  the  same.  The  regular  variations  between  the  three 
manuscripts  and  variations  of  abbreviation,  when  well  evid 
enced,  may  be  eliminated. 

The  day-signs  have  many  variants,  mostly  quite  simple, 
and  all  checked  positively  by  the  use  of  the  form  in  some  day- 
series.  Ix  has  many  forms.  There  are  at  least  three  entirely 
different  Cimi  forms :  f£T£\  f^~o\  GaTfa  There  are  found 
two  different  forms  of  fcVj  L^J  L^y  the  closed  eye,  one 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  39 

of  which  certainly  is  Cimi,  the  other  occurs  regularly  in  such 
different  compounds  (and  I  think  never  as  a  simple  day-sign), 


as  to  make  it  necessary  to  separate  it; 
a  different  meaning  entirely  —  perhaps 


it  has  probably 
that  of  sleep. 


A  noteworthy  technical  line  is  to  be  found  in  the  drawing 
of  the  glyphs.  Whereas  in  the  case  of  the  day-signs,  faces,  and 
conventional  forms  in  general,  certain  variations  of  handwrit 
ing,  etc.,  are  evidently  permitted,  but  only  within  certain  defin 
ite  lines,  in  some  few  animal  glyphs  no  two  instances  are  just 
alike.  In  other  words,  the  glyphs  in  general  are  conventions 
with  established  meanings  —  actual  writing  ;*  but  we  also  have 
pictures  of  birds  or  animal  forms,  where  the  writer  is  not  fol 
lowing  convention,  but  nature.  The  freedom  of  style  used  in 
the  latter  case  only  serves  to  emphasize  the  conventionality  of 
the  former,  and  to  separate  the  entire  system  from  either  pic 
ture  or  rebus  writing.  See  the  following  fish-glyph  forms: 


These  pictures  are  almost  exclusively  in  uncompounded  forms, 
whereas  the  conventional  glyphs,  whether  human,  animal  or 
otherwise,  are  subject  to  the  general  rules  of  incorporation. 

Writing  is  a  system  of  conventional  forms  with  established 
meanings,  corresponding  to  and  reflecting  the  structure  of  the 
spoken  language;  some  picture  elements  whose  value  as  such 
has  remained  either  wholly  or  partly  present  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  use  them,  are  not  inconsistent  with  genuine  writing ; 
when  present  they  add  vividness  to  the  writing,  and  emphasize 
its  ideographic  character.  A  combination  of  picture  forms  only, 
may  be  used  as  means  of  communication  to  a  certain  degree, 
but  can  never  constitute  writing;  that,  like  speech,  must  pro 
vide  for  the  expression  of  the  relationships  and  categories  that 
make  up  the  structure  of  language. 

*  "  These  [the  Maya  glyphs]  do  not  represent  a  real  script,  as  is  so 
often-  maintained,  but  are  only  pictures  which  have  been  reduced  to  the 
appearance  of  letters,  contracted  to  a  narrow  space,  made  cursive."  ! 
—Dr.  Eduard  Seler,  Codex  Vaticanus  No.  3773,  page  65. —  Well? 


40  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

Egyptian  writing,  which  is  of  course  true  uniting,  contains 
elements  of  every  class.  It  has  symbols  and  also  pictures,  not 
only  of  things  or  creatures,  but  of  actions  as  well,  "  contracted 
to  a  narrow  space,  made  cursive  " ;  these  pictures,  although 
still  ranking  as  such,  stand  for  words  —  they  can  be  pro- 
nounccd,  and  have  syntax,  which  is  the  crucial  test.  Egyptian 
next  has  unrecognizable  forms,  whose  meaning  has  become  a 
simple  convention,  but  which  still  stand  for  ivords,  or  particles. 
It  has  elements  which  are  not  pronounced  for  themselves,  but 
only  serve  as  determinatives.  (Such  a  use  of  determinatives 
is  not  limited  to  hieroglyphic  writing,  but  is  possessed  also  by 
alphabetic ;  the  second  o  in  the  word  too  is  strictly  a  determin 
ative,  to  distinguish  the  adverb  too  from  the  preposition  to, 
both  pronounced  alike.  Tibetan  has  an  elaborate  system  of 
silent  letters  used  as  grammatical  determinatives.)  And  then 
Egyptian  writing  finally  has  pure  alphabetic  elements. 

As  to  Maya,  I  think  it  far  more  than  likely  that,  when  at 
last  deciphered,  it  will  be  found  to  contain  most  if  not  all  of 
these  classes  — mutatis  mutandis.  There  seems  every  evidence 
that  it  is  made  up  of  pictures  with  probably  both  concrete  and 
abstract  meanings;  word-conventions;  and  grammatical  par 
ticles.  It  is  at  least  probable  that  there  are  also  silent  determ 
inatives  and  not  unlikely  that  there  is  also  a  pure  phonetic  or 
alphabetic  element.  That  the  latter  element  is  not  the  basic 
one  may  I  think  be  now  regarded  as  established. 


CONCLUSION 

Introite,  nam  et  hie  dii  sunt. 

IT  is  not  my  desire  to  add,  as  a  conclusion  to  a  comment 
bearing  on  the  restoration  and  interpretation  of  Mayan  hiero 
glyphic  texts,  any  general  discussion  of  the  data  which  tradition 
and  the  early  Spanish  writers  have  left  us  of  the  mythology, 
rites  and  customs  of  the  American  races;  and  still  less  to  run 
out  a  line  of  attractive  analogies  between  isolated  instances  of 
their  words,  symbols  or  works,  with  those  of  any  of  the  various 
nations  of  the  other  hemisphere ;  nor  to  build  up  any  theory  of 
descent  or  intercourse  with  any  of  these  latter  as  today  known 
to  history.  The  subject  before  us  is  on  its  very  face  too  vast; 
the  written  and  traditional  data  are  entirely  too  scanty  and 
too  little  understood;  and  while  we  are  still  obliged  to  desig 
nate  the  various  gods  and  personages  of  the  Codices  as  god  A, 
B,  etc.,  and  are  unable  to  fix  definitely*  a  single  inscribed  date  in 

*  See  Memoranda  on  the  Chilam  Balam  Calendars,  C.  P.  Bowditch, 
1901.  The  obscurities  of  the  Chronicles  render  the  questions  con 
nected  with  Ahpula's  death  exceedingly  difficult.  For  instance,  the  im 
mediate  context  in  the  books  of  Mani  and  Tizimin  make  the  date  1536, 
as  given  in  numerals,  an  impossible  one.  But,  if  the  date  as  given  in 
Maya  terms  is  to  be  accepted  at  all  (and  it  certainly  is  too  specific  to 
be  rejected),  then  by  the  long  count  such  a  date  must  have  been  either 
1502,  5350,  or  12,786  years  after  the  date  of  Stela  9,  Copan.  Mr.  Bow- 
ditch  favors  the  lower  figure,  chiefly  because  it  is  the  lower,  and  thus 
puts  Stela  9  at  A.  D.  34.  To  get  this  date  the  longest  possible  distance 
from  Ahpula's  death  to  the  end  of  the  katun  must  be  used  —  that  is, 
"  6  tuns  short "  must  be  taken  to  mean  "  almost  7  tuns  short."  I  can 
only  say  here  that  if,  in  correcting  the  figures  1536,  as  demanded  by  the 
immediate  context,  we  make  the  simplest  possible  correction,  and  put 
them  one  katun  earlier,  1516,  and  then  take  as  the  unexpired  time  to  the 
end  of  the  katun  the  shortest  of  the  three  terms  given  as  possible,  or 
5  tuns  139  days,  bringing  the  end  of  Katun  13-Ahau  on  Jan.  28,  1522, 
we  not  only  bring  the  end  of  Katun  11-Ahau  within  the  year  1541,  as 
is  most  positively  stated  by  the  practically  contemporary  Pech  Chron 
icle,  but  we  also  bring  in  line  nearly  all  the  important  events  of  the 
Chronicles,  from  the  fall  of  Mayapan,  ca.  1450,  the  coming  of  the 
Spaniards,  and  the  smallpox,  in  11-Ahau  (1521  to  1541).  the  conversion 
to  Christianity  in  9-Ahau,  down  to  Landa's  death  (1579)  in  7-Ahau; 
as  well  as  many  outside  references.  Any  other  combination  requires 
harsher  emendations  somewhere  else.  But  the  above  choice  of  the  term 
of  5  tuns  139  days,  thus  seemingly  called  for,  means  that  Stela  9  at 
Copan  is  dated,  by  the  long  count,  5350  years  before  Ahpula's  death,  or 
B.  c.  3824.  Whether  this  is  right,  is  a  question  for  the  future. 


42  COMMENTARY  ON  THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

terms  of  our  chronology,  or  tell  the  event  attached  to  it,  fancied 
comparisons  amount  to  little.  And  the  favorite  "  linguistic  " 
method  is  more  fragile  yet,  especially  when  the  uncertainties 
of  spelling  and  transliteration  are  considered,  and  above  all  the 
frequent  total  ignorance  of  the  past  history  and  changes  the 
different  words  compared  must  have  gone  through  since  the 
time  when  by  any  possibility  a  physical  transmission  from  one 
locality  to  the  other  could  have  taken  place.  These  ought  to 
be  commonplaces  of  research,  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  they 
have  not  quite  yet  become  so.*  There  is  no  need  to  give  in 
stances  of  such  false  analogies  which  have  served  as  the  bases 
for  a  multitude  of  filiation  theories,  all  equally  well  "  support 
ed  "  by  details,  and  all  mutually  exclusive.  Nor  on  the  other 
hand  can  we  deny  the  existence  actually  of  a  very  great  num 
ber  of  resemblances  and  identities  which  cannot  be  ignored, 
but  must  imply  connexions  of  some  kind.  The  English  nation 
is  not  a  Hebrew  people  because  it  had  a  prime  minister  Disraeli, 
nor  Greeks  because  they  have  a  Queen  Alexandra,  nor  Romans 
because  of  certain  local  names.  Such  facts  even  when  real,  and 
established  as  such,  may  only  be  evidence  of  a  single  contin 
ental  culture  or  transcontinental  intercourse. 

It  has  been  the  dictum  of  a  certain  school  of  archaeology, 

*  "  In  ethnology  however  one  troubles  oneself  little  with  the  detail  of 
linguistic  structure.  It  is  held  quite  sufficient  to  gather  from  different 
peoples  and  collate  a  couple  of  hundred  vocables,  into  whose  actual 
nature  all  insight  is  lacking,  and  then  upon  dubious,  often  purely  super 
ficial  and  apparent  similarities,  to  deduce  linguistic  affinities.  Or  else, 
as  is  now  most  in  fashion,  the  claims  of  linguistic  research  towards  the 
solution  of  ethnological  questions  are  reduced  to  a  '  most  modest  share ' 
in  comparison  with  other  fields  '  somewhat  more  in  line  with  natural 
sciences'  —  meanwhile  pointing  for  justification  to  the  absurdities  set 
forth  as  the  results  of  too  far-fetched  linguistic  deductions.  .  .  .  The 
errors  and  sophistries  charged  against  ethnological  linguistics  are  rather 
an  accidental  result  of  the  individuality  of  single  investigators,  than 
essential  to  the  subject.  They  are  at  least  scarcely  greater  than  those 
to  the  credit  of  recent  Anthropometry.  A  brief  glance  at  the  strange 
changes  of  opinion  in  the  latter  field  during  the  last  three  decades,  in 
spite  of  all  its  boasted  figures,  shows  how  little  ground  it  has  to  throw 
stones.  Serious  students,  such  as  Wallace  and  Dall,  whose  critical 
ability  in  Zoomorphology  no  one  can  deny,  and  who  do  not  rest  con 
tent  with  a  few  skulls  of  doubtful  provenance,  gathered  a  la  Hagen- 
beck,  have  come  to  a  wholly  negative  view  of  the  value  of  Cranio 
metry." — Dr.  Otto  Stoll,  Maya-Sprachcn  dcr  Pokom-Gruppe,  I,  vii,  ix. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  43 

still  very  much  in  general  favor,  that  all  these  identities  are  to 
be  explained  as  the  natural  result  of  the  innate  tendencies  of 
untutored  men,  on  their  evolutionary  rise,  at  certain  cultural 
stages,  to  imagine  the  same  myths  and  invent  the  same  rites. 
From  this  as  a  principle  I  wholly  dissent;  it  simply  does  not 
meet  the  facts.  There  are  of  course  many  facts  to  which  it 
does  apply,  such  as  those  that  both  Chinese  and  Americans 
made  paper,  tanned  leather,  made  feather  ornaments,  used 
star  and  flower  names  for  their  children,  and  so  on:  facts 
which  had  been  used  to  prove  Chinese  and  American  identity, 
and  to  which  Dr.  Brinton  justly  added  in  retort  that  they  also 
slept  at  night,  wore  clothes  when  it  was  cold,  and  so  on.  But 
there  is  a  very  great  number  of  facts,  a  number  constantly 
growing  with  research,  which  cannot  be  so  dismissed.  Such 
are  the  employment  of  abstract  symbolism,  the  erection  of 
great  structures  all  having  a  definite  and  identical  astronomical 
bearing  and  evident  use,  the  common  possession  of  so-called 
myths  all  telling  the  one  story,  and  only  slightly  modified 
locally,  such  as  the  birth-stories  of  Huitzilopochtli  and  of 
Herakles,  and  the  stories  of  the  travail  of  Latona  pursued  by 
the  Python  and  of  the  Woman  clothed  with  the  Sun  in  Revel 
ation;  or  the  universal  tradition  of  seven  ancestral  caves  or 
cities  in  America,  compared  with  the  Tibetan  and  Puranic 
stories  of  the  seven  lotus-leaves  of  Sveta-dvipa,  the  first  con 
tinental  home  of  the  race ;  the  Hacha  de  cobre  of  the  Miztecs 
and  the  ever-turning  spear  of  jade  of  the  Japanese  story  of 
the  place  where  the  gods  first  descended  on  earth  ;  or  the  whole 
question  of  the  origin  of  the  Zodiac.  These  things,  and  a  host 
of  others,  need  a  different  explanation  —  all  the  more  since 
the  more  we  are  learning  of  them  the  more  we  find  that  they 
enclose  facts  of  which  the  hypothetical  "  savage  children " 
could  not,  ex  hypothesi,  have  been  aware  —  some  facts  indeed 
which  our  very  latest  modern  science  is  only  now  learning.* 

*  Our  present  day  speculators  never  seem  to  think  for  a  moment 
that  these  things  may  conceal,  and  thereby  preserve,  some  real  meaning, 
or  be  more  than  nonsense.  The  theory  of  mythological  interpretation 
pushed  to  such  extremes  as  in  the  "  animistic  "  explanations  of  Weber, 
Keightley,  and  others,  and  not  absent  from  the  writings  of  some 


44  COMMENTARY  ON   THE   PEREZ   CODEX 

But  while  dissenting  now  wholly  from  this  theory  (of  "  co- 
incidentalism  "),  one  cannot  but  hold  in  all  respect  those  who 
in  their  time  held  it.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  savant  to  make 
the  best  logical  use  he  can  of  what  he  has,  and  he  cannot  be 
criticised  for  not  using  finer  scales  than  the  time  affords.  And 
this  theory  was  needed  as  an  answer  to  the  absurdities,  brought 
out  in  utter  disregard  of  physical  possibilities,  postulating  off 
hand  migrations  and  filiations  and  evolutionary  advances  to 
tally  impossible  within  the  periods  allowed  for  their  completion, 
and  utterly  without  parallel  in  any  known  part  of  the  world  or 
page  of  history.  And  yet,  when  this  theory  had  its  birth,  the 
most  of  Christendom  was  still  enthralled  by  the  Ussherian 
chronology  of  the  creation  and  history  of  the  whole  divine 
universe,  which  simply  did  not  have  room  in  it  for  all  these 
things  to  happen  naturally  and  connectedly. 

And  if  it  is  urged  that  present  science  had  already  say  a 
generation  ago,  a  second's  time  we  might  say  in  the  life  of 
humanity,  begun  to  emancipate  our  ideas  of  time  and  evolution, 
still  it  is  the  fact  that  that  increase  in  breadth  of  vision  has 
so  far  applied  to  every  known  thing  but  man  himself.  The 
old  belief  that  gave  the  world  6000  years  of  life,  at  least  put 
thinking  man  at  its  beginning ;  the  modern  nightmare  gives  us 
a  world  for  hundreds  of  millions  of  years  without  thought, 
and  makes  human  civilization  an  ephemeral  episode  of  a  few 
seconds  of  universal  duration.  Disregarding,  one  is  forced  to 
say  wilfully,  the  fact  that  every  single  one  of  their  own  argu 
ments  in  favor  of  anthropoid  descent  for  man  would  equally 

Americanists  (namely,  that  it  was  all  nothing  but  ridiculous  or  con 
cocted  fancy,  taken  soberly)  is  bad  enough,  and  argues  little  breadth 
or  insight,  when  applied  to  the  myths  of  a  single  people,  considered 
alone.  Applied  to  comparative  mythology,  in  the  state  of  things  today, 
it  is  simply  impossible.  The  plain  fact  is,  that  such  identities  as  these 
must  indicate  one  of  two  things :  a  common  tradition,  locally  modified 
by  circumstances ;  or  a  fact  in  nature  or  history,  symbolically  expressed 
in  different  ways  according  to  the  times  and  modes.  And  it  most  prob 
ably  indicates  both  of  these.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  account  for  the  ex 
tent,  and  the  weight  given  to  some  of  these  "  myths,"  now  that  we  are 
coming  to  a  better  appreciation  of  the  scope  and  greatness  of  ancient 
civilizations  —  everywhere  —  except  they  do  correspond  to  actual  facts 
in  nature  and  history.  And  it  might  be  worth  our  while  to  get  at 
some  of  these. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  45 

support  a  theory  that  the  anthropoids  are  debased  offshoots  of 
human  stocks,*  biology  still  demands  such  a  lapse  of  time  for 
its  physical  evolution  that  its  adherents  oppose  and  belittle  to 
the  utmost  every  bit  of  evidence  of  any  antiquity  even  for  the 
physical  frame  of  man.  We  have,  to  say  nothing  of  the  rest 
of  the  world,  Egyptian  civilization  now  pushed  back  10,000 
years,  and  (together  with  others  as  we  slowly  uncover  them) 
as  far  removed  as  ever  from  barbarism,  if  not  indeed  growing 
greater  as  we  go  back ;  but  we  are  not  allowed  anything  but 
apelike,  half  arboreal  savages  50,000  years  ago.  And  yet  every 
observed  fact  shows  us  savage  or  worn-out  races  everywhere 
throughout  the  world  deteriorating  and  dying  out,  and  nowhere 
any  savages  progressing  or,  unaided  by  outside  influence,  de 
veloping  what  we  know  as  civilization.  We  see  everywhere  the 
rise  and  fall  of  nations,  races  and  civilizations,  and  their  utter 
blotting  out;  and  we  refuse  to  accept  that  process  as  a  uni 
versal  law  through  which  the  destiny  of  the  human  race  is 
working  itself  out.  In  fact,  we  do  not  seem  to  believe  that 
the  human  race  has  any  destiny;  it  may  have  beginning  and 
an  end,  but  no  destiny. 

And  so  although  this  modern  scientific  school  began  as  a 
reaction  against  the  narrowness  of  theological  limitations,  both 
of  time  and  greatness,  so  hampered  and  hypnotized  has  our 
thought  been  by  both,  that  man  is  of  nearly  as  little  universal 

*  We  might  just  as  well  acknowledge,  once  for  all,  that  in  spite  of 
its  present-day  currency  in  England  and  America,  and  its  pre-emption 
of  the  field  of  "  science  for  the  people,"  the  theory  of  man's  physical 
and  mental  descent  from  the  anthropoids,  is  not  only  not  proved,  but 
is  vehemently  denied  by  an  equally  able  and  scientific,  and  withal  more 
logical,  body  of  researchers  than  those  who  form  its  supporters.  To 
fabricate  a  missing  link  in  a  chain  (or  even,  as  with  Haeckel,  several 
links),  whose  only  authority  is  acknowledged  to  be  its  necessity  in 
order  to  complete  the  evidence  for  the  theory,  and  then  to  declare  the 
theory  proved  because  the  fabricated  link  fits  perfectly  the  gap  it  was 
created  for,  is  equally  vicious  scientifically  whether  the  fabrication  be 
the  work  of  a  physicist  of  renown  or  a  linguistic  theorizer.  Let  it 
simply  be  agreed,  as  it  now  is  by  all  science,  that  the  evolution  of  form 
is  a  universal  and  well  evidenced  principle,  working  out  through  the 
various  well  established  and  comprehensible  incidents,  such  as  natural 
selection,  adaptation  to  environment,  and  so  on  —  yet  this  statement  of 
the  fact  is  not  an  explanation  of  its  cause.  And  every  scientific  and 
logical  requirement  will  be  equally,  and  better,  met  by  regarding  all 


46  COMMENTARY   ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

account  with  one  as  with  the  other,  and  we  find  a  seemingly 
ineradicable  repugnance  to  admit  that  any  people  had  "  devel 
oped  "  writing  before  the  least  possible  time  ago  we  can  fix  it, 
usually  this  side  of  the  year  1  of  the  Christian  era.  And  thus 
we  have  M.  Terrien  de  Lacouperie's  "  450  embryo  scripts  and 
writings  "  —  which  another  fifty  years  may  show  to  be  nearly 
as  many  fragments  of  one  or  a  few  great  stocks  of  ancient 
hieroglyphs.  Of  course  it  is  impossible  to  derive  the  American 
races  or  civilizations  from  the  Chinese,  Phoenicians,  Hittites, 
or  any  of  the  cultures  of  the  other  hemisphere,  if  we  limit  the 
latter  to  what  we  know  of  their  history  within  the  past  two 
or  three  thousand  odd  years,  and  American  civilization  to  the 
past  fifteen  hundred  years.  The  matter  is  somewhat  greater 
than  that  —  just  as  man  is  somewhat  greater  than  a  fool  of 
natural  caprice. 

There  is  one  point  from  which  this  question  of  American 

forms,  whether  physical,  linguistic,  or  of  any  kind,  as  coming,  or  rather 
brought,  into  being  by  the  force  of  a  consciousness  which  needs  them 
as  the  vehicles  of  its  expanding  activity.  That  this  is  absolutely  true 
in  language,  anybody  can  see.  That  it  is  true  in  every  department  of 
daily  life  about  us,  everybody  does  see.  That  it  should  be  equally  true 
in  biology  and  physics,  would  not  affect  the  standing  or  verity  of  a 
single  observed  fact. 

There  was,  along  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and  for 
some  time  before  and  after,  a  very  curious  movement,  which  seemed 
to  spread  itself  over  nearly  the  entire  world,  east  and  west.  It  is  told 
of  the  early  Aztecs  that  "  they  destroyed  the  records  of  their  prede 
cessors,  in  order  to  increase  their  own  prestige."  It  is  related  that 
writing  once  existed  in  Peru,  but  was  entirely  wiped  out,  and  the  Inca 
records  committed  to  quipus  alone.  The  "  burning  of  the  books  "  un 
der  Tsin  Chi  Hwangti  in  B.  c.  213  sought  to  do  the  same  for  China. 
The  times  of  Akbar  witnessed  much  of  the  same  in  India.  And  in 
Europe  almost  nothing  was  left  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  great  pre-Christian 
eastern  empires  and  systems  of  thought ;  so  that  from  the  establish 
ment  of  State  Christianity  under  Constantine,  and  the  final  settlement 
of  the  Canon  at  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  an  impenetrable  veil  was  drawn 
over  the  achievements  and  greatness  of  the  Past,  and  all  connexion 
therewith  broken  off.  It  was  some  time  after  this  that  we  find  the 
heliocentric  theory,  as  well  as  that  of  other  habitable  worlds,  denied 
(in  Europe),  because  "it  would  deprive  the  Earth  of  its  unique  and 
central  eminence."  Just  as  we  also  today  are  served  up  with  prehistoric 
savage  and  animal  ancestors,  to  the  greater  glory  of  our  own  present- 
day  magnificence.  But  it  really  is  in  sober  truth  only  a  question  of 
mental  perspective  which  does  not  affect  the  facts  of  history,  biology, 
archaeology  or  language  in  the  least.  It  is  only  a  question  of  which 
end  of  the  telescope  we  look  through. 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  47 

origins,  at  least  of  American  place  in  human  society  and  civil 
ization,  can  be  studied  in  its  broader  lines,  even  with  what 
materials  we  have.  It  is  that  of  language  in  general.  All 
these  other  matters  we  have  touched  upon  are  necessary  fac 
tors  in  the  question  of  human  evolution,  and  the  position  of 
America  cannot  be  considered  apart  from  them,  and  all  of 
them.  But  Language  touches  both  the  glyphs  directly  and  also 
all  these  other  things,  and  is  itself  of  surpassing  interest  and 
importance  as  a  human  study. 

From  one  point  of  view  Language  is  man  himself,  and  it 
certainly  is  civilization.  Without  it  man  is  not  man,  a  Self- 
expressing  and  social  being.  It  is,  as  von  Humboldt  laid 
down,  not  an  act  but  an  activity,  or  energy,  not  a  thing  done, 
but  a  doing.  It  is  the  constant  effort  of  the  conscious  self  to 
formulate  thought.  It  is  the  use  of  the  energy  of  creation, 
of  objectivation,  a  veritable  many-colored  rainbow  bridge  be 
tween  the  inner  or  higher  man  and  the  outer  or  lower  worlds. 
And  it  is  not  only  the  expression  of  Man  as  man,  but  in  its 
varied  forms  it  is  the  inevitable  and  living  expression  of  each 
man  or  body  of  men  at  any  and  every  point  of  time.  Itself 
boundless  as  an  ocean,  it  is  in  its  infinite  forms  and  streams 
and  colors  and  sounds,  the  faithful  and  exact  exponent  both 
of  the  sources  and  channels  by  which  it  has  come,  and  of  the 
banks  in  which  it  is  held,  racial,  national  or  individual.  It  is 
living  or  dead,  forceful  or  weak,  pure  or  foul,  refreshing  or 
flat,  healing  or  poisonous.  It  limits  us,  but  yields  to  our  force. 
Every  word  or  form  comes  to  us  with  the  thought  impress 
of  every  man  or  nation  that  has  used  or  molded  it  before  us. 
We  must  take  it  as  it  comes,  but  we  give  it  something  of  our 
selves  as  we  pass  it  on.  If  our  intellectual  and  spiritual 
thought  is  aflame,  whether  as  nation  or  individual,  we  may 
purify  it,  energize  it,  give  it  power  to  form  and  arrange  the 
atoms  around  it  —  and  we  have  a  new  literature,  a  new  and 
beneficent,  creative  social  vehicle  of  intercourse,  mutual  under 
standing,  and  human  unification.  Or  if  our  mental  or  spiritual 
life  is  stale,  and  petty,  or  egoistic,  or  seeking  for  enjoyment 


48  COMMENTARY   ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

only  rather  than  action ;  if  we  have  nothing  in  us  to  give  the 
words  and  forms  we  use,  but  only  some  national  force  left  to 
use  and  play  with  them,  we  for  a  while  refine,  and  paint,  and 
petti fy,  and  elaborate  into  meaningless  subtleties  of  form, 
every  one  of  which  in  turn  reacts  upon  our  mental  and  spir 
itual  life,  distracting  and  enchaining  us,  until  at  last  the  nation 
and  its  language  —  die  out ;  for  neither  can  live  without  the 
other. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  the  criterion  of  the  perfectness  of 
any  language  is  not  to  be  found  in  a  comparison  of  its  forms 
or  methods  with  those  of  any  other,  but  in  its  fitness  as  a 
vehicle  for  the  expression  of  deeper  life,  of  the  best  and  the 
greatest  that  is  in  those  who  use  it,  and  above  all  in  its  ability 
to  react  and  stimulate  newer  and  yet  greater  mental  and  spir 
itual  activity  and  expression.  The  force  behind  man,  demand 
ing  expression  through  him,  and  him  only,  into  the  human  life 
of  all,  is  infinite  —  of  necessity  infinite.  There  is  no  limit,  nor 
ever  has  been  any  limit,  to  what  man  may  bring  down  into  the 
dignifying,  broadening  and  enriching  of  human  life  and  evolu 
tion,  save  in  his  own  ability  to  comprehend,  express,  and  live  it. 
And  the  brightness  and  cleanness  of  the  tools  whereby  he  form 
ulates  his  thought,  as  well  as  the  worthiness  and  fitness  of  the 
substance  and  the  forms  into  which  he  shapes  it  for  others  to 
see,  are  the  essentials  of  his  craft.  For  such  is  the  economy  of 
nature,  which  wastes  nothing  in  reality,  that  a  fit  vehicle  will 
be  taken  possession  of  by  its  own  tenant ;  and  the  unfit  left  to 
and  be  taken  by  those  who  can  use  no  better. 

Before,  then,  taking  up  the  great  formal  classes  into  which 
language  at  large  is  usually  divided,  it  will  be  necessary  to  say 
a  few  words  as  to  the  foundations  of  form  itself  in  language, 
that  we  may  then  proceed  to  consider  these  classes  from  the 
standpoint  of  their  inner  meaning  rather  than  solely  of  the 
outer  form;  and  by  seeking  to  understand  the  mental  and 
spiritual  equipment  and  life  of  those  that  used  them,  may  per 
haps  in  turn  be  better  fitted  finally  to  enter  into  the  genius  of 
their  written  and  spoken  languages,  and  to  interpret  through 
them  in  the  detail  more  of  the  ideas  which  those  forms  were 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE)  PEREZ   CODEX 

both  fitted  and  used  to  express.  Such  a  method  is  essential 
for  the  understanding  of  any  language  or  culture,  but  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  the  case  of  these  non-Aryan  tongues, 
so  great  is  the  distance  both  of  time  and  thought  which  separ 
ates  us  from  them.  If  we  set  out  to  compare  the  forms  by 
which  they  expressed  their  thought  with  those  within  which  we 
develop  ours,  or  approach  these  cultures  and  peoples  in  the 
attitude  of  alien  criticism,  study  their  "  interesting  ways " 
through  a  mental  lorgnette  and  impale  their  dead  forms  on 
the  needles  of  our  collection,  we  shall  not  only  show  ourselves 
less  broad  in  culture  than  many  of  them,  but  we  shall  simply 
close  and  lock  the  doors  of  discrimination  and  understanding 
before  us.  The  question  is  not,  How  do  their  forms  and  ways 
appeal  to  us?  but,  How  did  those  forms,  and  ways,  achieve 
their  underlying  objects,  and  what  was  the  thought  behind 
them? 

Life  is  action,  and  without  activity  whatever  powers  lie 
within  any  conscious  being  are  only  potential.  Activity  is  the 
bridge  between  the  inner  man  and  the  outer  world,  by  which 
he  impresses  his  thought,  in  forms,  on  chaos  or  the  atoms 
about  him,  receiving  in  return  increased  knowledge  and  exper 
ience  of  all  he  touches,  and  knowledge  of  himself  through  the 
results  of  his  own  actions;  and  it  is  the  bridge  between  man 
and  man.  For  this  reason  the  verb,  the  word  of  action,  is  the 
most  important  and  most  developed  part  of  speech.  The  three 
hypostases  of  life,  as  of  language,  are  the  self,  activity,  and 
the  world ;  and  it  is  for  the  expression  of  all  the  possible  varied 
relations  between  these  three,  that  all  the  forms  of  any  lan 
guage  come  into  being.  And  from  the  way  in  which  these 
forms  are  developed,  and  the  relative  importance  which  is 
given  to  this  or  that  form  of  thought  or  activity,  the  character 
of  the  people,  their  grasp  of  nature,  and  their  own  conception 
of  themselves  and  their  relation  to  the  world,  can  be  seen.* 

*  It  is  exceedingly  interesting  to  trace  the  course  of  criticism  since 
the  appearance  of  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt's  great  work,  Ueber  die 
Verschicdenhcit  des  tnenschlichen  Sprachbaucs  und  ihren  Einfluss  auf 
die  geistige  Entwickelung  des  Menschengeschlechts  (Berlin,  1836).  Dr. 
Brinton  gave  it  most  unqualified  approval;  (see  especially  his  mono- 


50  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

Some  languages  have  the  strong  impress  of  impersonality, 
without  any  loss  of  virility ;  others  are  strongly  egotistic  and 
self-assertive,  with  perhaps  the  braggart's  lack  of  genuine 
strength.  Each  spoken  language  that  we  know  has  its  own 
color  and  tone,  to  which  our  thought  must  respond,  if  we 
would  know  and  use  it  well.  To  speak  good  Swedish,  for 
instance,  requires  clear  thinking  to  an  exceptional  degree.  To 
show  this,  the  form  "  come  here,"  which  is  the  ordinary  Eng 
lish  expression,  is  simply  bad  grammar  in  Swedish;  the  use 
of  "  come  hither"  (kom  hit,  instead  of  kom  ha'r)  is  imperative. 
We  have  the  "  hither  "  in  English,  but  it  has  become  stilted, 
and  the  linguistic  distinction  lost.  Compare  also  the  use  of  fa, 
as  a  common  auxiliary ;  nor  are  these  exceptions,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  characteristic  examples.  Also  to  enunciate  the  lan 
guage  rightly  one  must  hold  the  back  and  neck  erect  and  the 
muscles  firm. 

graph  read  before  the  American  Philosophical  Society  in  1885,  and 
printed  the  same  year).  Prof.  H.  Steinthal  (Grammatik,  Logik  and 
Psychologic,  1855)  calls  the  subject  of  "  inner  form  "  the  most  import 
ant  one  in  linguistic  science,  and  von  Humboldt's  treatment  of  it  his 
greatest  contribution  to  that  science.  And  so  on.  But  the  work  has 
nevertheless  received  little  attention  from  a  large  number  of  writers, 
most  of  them  declaring  it  "  unclear."  These  two  views,  when  one 
studies  the  various  writers,  seem  to  follow  closely  upon  the  stand 
points  from  which  each  approaches  the  study.  Those  who  study 
language  (perhaps  one  should  here  say,  languages)  as  a  phenomenon, 
a  set  of  external  forms,  an  act,  a  thing  done,  get  little  use  out  of 
von  Humboldt's  work.  Those  who  see  it  as  a  human  "  activity," 
an  energy,  get  much.  This  is  quite  apparent  in  one  of  the  clearest  and 
ablest  linguistic  works  which  has  recently  appeared,  Dr.  Adolf  Noreen's 
Vart  Sprak  (in  9  vols.,  still  in  course  of  publication,  Lund,  1903  and 
later),  a  work  of  far  wider  linguistic  value  than  appears  from  its  title. 
Dr.  Noreen,  however,  dismisses  von  Humboldt's  work,  and  the  sub 
ject  of  "inner  form,"  with  a  few  pages,  and  the  results  are  apparent 
in  several  interesting  points.  In  the  first  place,  in  the  course  of  an 
acute  and  critical  analysis,  wherein  he  shows  that  the  purpose  of 
speech  is  not  simply  expression  of  thoughts  or  ideas,  but  the  com 
munication  to  some  other  person  of  the  knowledge  of  the  ideas  so 
held  by  the  speaker,  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  the  same  knowledge  of  A's 
wishes  could  be  as  well  communicated  by  his  saying  '  I  want  you  to 
come'  as  by  his  saying  just  'Come.'"  This  is  quite  true;  but  the 
energic  effect  is  quite  different.  Language  is  the  bridge  from  man  to 
man,  and  it  is  also  a  creative  activity  of  man.  Of  course  Dr.  Noreen, 
in  a  later  volume,  where  he  most  lucidly  analyses  the  terms  '  words,' 
'forms,'  and  'concepts,'  etc.  (ord,  morfcm.  scmcm,  etc.),  and  corrects 
many  errors  of  definition  made  by  his  predecessors,  acknowledges  the 


COMMENTARY   ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  51 

In  some  languages  the  speaker  thinks  of  himself  and  his 
completed  action  as  inseparable,  as  a  single  idea,  as  the  Latin 
edi  for  I  have  eaten;  in  others  he  thinks  of  himself  subcon 
sciously  as  possessing  the  results  of  his  action,  as  our  /  have 
eaten;  and  in  others,  as  among  the  Irish  peasantry,  he  separ 
ates  himself  and  his  action 'entirely,  as  /  am  after  eating.  In 
some  grammars,  as  in  Maya,  the  verbal  concept  starts  with  the 
past;  in  others,  as  our  own,  we  live  in  the  present;  in  the 
Welsh,  the  future  is  the  chief  tense.  The  mere  choice  of  shall 
or  7C-J//  as  the  first  person  future  auxiliary  denotes  a  specific 
mental  quality. 

Now  the  expression  of  all  these  infinite  shades  of  relation- 
tionship  between  the  self,  the  activity  and  the  world,  is  achieved 
in  two  ways :  position  or  placement  —  syntax ;  and  form. 
The  customary  division  of  languages  is  into  Monosyllabic, 
Agglutinative,  Incorporating,  and  Inflectional,  and  this  division 
will  suit  our  purpose,  though  it  must  be  used  with  care.  It  is 
held  in  the  ordinary  theory  that  these  classes  must  represent 
successive  stages  of  linguistic  perfection,  each  in  turn  being 
higher  in  the  scale  than  the  other,  they  having  grown  one  from 
the  other  as  the  race  advanced.  By  the  theory  the  monosylla- 

difference  between  the  two  forms ;  still  his  whole  admirable  work, 
analytical  and  critical  as  it  is,  is  devoted  to  this  phase  of  language  as 
a  mere  phenomenon,  a  set  of  forms  which  serve  as  a  medium  of  com 
munication.  From  this  standpoint,  we  know  all  there  is  to  know  about 
language  when  we  have  classified  its  forms.  But  from  the  other,  the 
study  is  ever  leading  us  into  the  regions  and  depths  of  man's  con 
sciousness,  his  creative  activity  as  it  goes  out  to  the  world ;  and  the 
true  definition  of  language,  from  this  position,  "  can  hence  only  be  a 
genetic  one."  (von  Humboldt,  Gesammelte  Werke,  VI,  42) 

It  is  further  not  unworthy  of  note  that,  except  where  directly  re 
quired  in  treating  of  verbal  categories,  nearly  all  of  the  enormous 
number  of  illustrations  which  Dr.  Noreen  chooses  for  his  points,  are 
nouns,  names  of  things,  and  vary  rarely  verbal  forms,  words  of  action 
and  doing.  But  it  is  simply  a  fact  that  all  the  potency  of  language  is  in 
the  verb,  and  almost  all  there  is  of  language,  in  a  philosophic  sense, 
lies  there.  The  verb  is  the  bridge  of  communication  and  action  upon 
external  things,  just  as  is  language  itself,  going  out  of  man.  And  it 
is  also  noteworthy  that  the  recognition  of  this  position  of  the  verb, 
together  with  these  other  matters  of  which  we  are  speaking,  seems 
nearer  at  hand  and  clearer  to  those  students  who  are  led  beyond  Aryan 
languages  to  the  study  of  American  and  Asiatic,  especially  Central  and 
Northern  Asiatic.  For  instance,  G.  v.  d.  Gabelentz,  Die  Sprachwissen- 
schaft,  and  other  works. 


52  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

bic  is  lower  than  the  agglutinative,  and  inherently  less  useful. 
But  the  theory  does  not  work  out  in  practical  application  to 
the  facts  we  have  to  deal  with,  for  while  we  cannot  find  still 
left  in  the  world  any  agglutinative  languages  representative 
of  sufficient  culture  to  bring  into  our  present  consideration, 
we  do  find  a  monosyllabic  in  the  highest  rank,  and  meeting 
the  highest  cultural  requirements.  In  short,  the  latter  may  be 
theoretically  the  inferior  tool,  but  the  genius  of  thought  be 
hind  is  greater  than  the  form.  One  man  can  draw  a  master 
piece  with  a  burnt  stick,  another  only  paint  a  daub  with  all 
the  brushes  made.  Once  again  we  must  not  judge  by  our  pre 
conceived  preferences  of  form. 

Omitting  therefore  the  modern  remnants  of  agglutinating 
languages,  outside  of  America,  as  affording  us  no  literary  ma 
terial  of  value  for  our  study,  we  shall  find  at  once  drawn  across 
all  the  other  great  classes  a  single  broad  line  of  division,  be 
tween  the  ideographic  and  the  literal  —  the  same  as  already 
mentioned.  And  the  moment  we  draw  this  line  as  an  exponent 
of  the  mental  and  spiritual  thought-life  of  the  different  peo 
ples,  we  shall  find  it  not  only  molding  their  language  forms, 
both  written  and  spoken,  but  manifest  as  well  in  their  art, 
philosophy,  and  even  their  social  polity.  And  of  course  we 
must  be  fair  in  our  comparisons,  and  not  set  a  Chinese  coolie 
in  the  concrete  against  an  English  statesman,  nor  any  concrete 
example  of  another  kind  of  culture  in  its  decay  with  the 
highest  bloom  to  which  we  believe  our  own  type  to  be  able 
to  carry  us. 

It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  the  ratiocinative,  literal  mind 
is  higher  than  the  ideal.  One  man  sees  directly  the  meaning 
of  the  things,  the  events  and  situations  before  him ;  another 
reasons  it  all  out.  And  contrary  to  many  of  our  current  be 
liefs,  the  former  is  often  the  man  of  action ;  he  sees  at  a  flash 
to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  and  gets  things  done.  His  thought, 
his  activity,  is  vivid ;  and  his  words  are  likely  to  be  so  as  well. 
The  idealist,  if  he  be  broadminded,  and  not  merely  sentimental, 
is  indeed  likely  to  be  the  practical  man.  And  the  type  of  mind 
that  is  made  manifest  to  us  by  these  great  non-Aryan  Ian- 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  53 

guages  and  their  forms,  is  the  former.  Of  course  idealism  in 
its  decadence  becomes  negative,  inactive,  self-consuming  and 
no  longer  creative.  But  in  its  bloom  the  direct  vision  may 
be  even  more  active,  more  practical,  than  are  the  reasoned 
processes. 

Much  ink  and  paper  has  been  spent  over  the  question  whe 
ther  the  Chinese  hieroglyphs  are  ideograms  or  phonograms, 
whether  the  character  "T**-  for  instance,  conveys  to  those 
using  it  primarily  the  S\  idea  of  Heaven,  or  the  spoken 
word  T'ien.  It  is  necessarily  both,  in  a  sense ;  it  would  not 
be  written  language  otherwise.  And  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
letter-combination  Heaven  is  in  a  way  as  much  to  us  a  picture 
of  the  idea  as  of  the  sound;  but  the  difference  of  procedure 
is  radical.  The  glyph  is  related  to  the  idea  directly,  the  spelled 
word  only  through  the  formal  combination  of  symbols  for 
single  vocal  speech-elements,  meaningless  when  separate.  The 
relation  of  spoken  sound  to  glyph  is  wholly  adventitious;  the 
relation  of  the  idea  to  the  spelled  word  is  equally  adventitious. 
The  ascent,  if  we  so  call  it,  of  written  speech  from  the  ideo 
graphic  to  the  alphabetic,  is  the  descent  of  the  thought  further 
into  material  forms.*  And  while  it  may  be  (and  in  the  course 
of  universal  evolution  rightly  so)  necessary  for  our  thought 
to  descend  into  the  bondage  of  matter  and  form,  for  its  know- 

*  It  was  not  until  after  this  paper  was  already  in  type  that  my  atten 
tion  was  directed  to  the  complete  agreement  of  this  and  the  succeeding 
sentences  with  the  following  passage  in  The  Secret  Doctrine,  by  H.  P. 
Blavatsky,  London,  1888,  vol.  II,  page  199.  After  saying  that  some  of 
the  Atlantean  races  spoke  the  agglutinative  languages,  the  passage  con 
tinues  :  "  While  the  '  cream '  of  the  Fourth  Race  gravitated  more  and 
more  toward  the  apex  of  physical  and  intellectual  evolution,  thus  leav 
ing  as  an  heirloom  to  the  nascent  Fifth  (the  Aryan)  Race  the  inflec 
tional,  highly  developed  languages,  the  agglutinative  decayed  and  re 
mained  as  a  fragmentary  fossil  idiom,  scattered  now,  and  nearly 
limited  to  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  America."  Note  the  words  I  have 
italicized,  marking  the  evolution  of  the  "  inflectional "  languages  as  an 
attendant  phenomenon  on  physico-intellectual  evolution,  compare  the 
passage  with  von  Humboldt's  thesis,  already  quoted,  that  the  incorpor- 
ative  quality  denotes  an  exaltation  of  the  imaginative  over  the  ratio- 
cinative  processes  of  mind  in  its  users,  and  further  with  the  surviving 
genius  of  Chinese,  the  type  of  monosyllabic  languages,  and  the  agree 
ment  is  evident.  Von  Humboldt,  however,  did  not  carry  out  so  fully 
the  archaeological  results,  for  which  indeed  the  materials  were  in  his 
day  still  lacking.  See  also  other  passages  in  The  Secret  Doctrine. 


54  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

ledge  and  experience,  and  for  the  development  of  matter  and 
form  into  fitter  vehicles  of  thought,  nevertheless  the  process  is 
a  binding  and  for  a  time  an  enchaining  one,  and  the  thought 
is,  for  a  time  at  least,  likely  to  be  lost  in  the  confusion  of 
forms. 

Thus  we  may  lay  down  as  our  fundamental  proposition 
that  a  hieroglyphic  form  of  writing  is  better  fitted  to,  and 
must  properly,  in  the  period  of  its  natural  development,  accom 
pany  the  imaginative  processes  of  mind.  Or,  since  imagination 
to  our  literal  thought  implies  in  some  degree  the  fanciful 
(though  wrongly  so  in  essence),  we  might  perhaps  better  say 
that  that  form  of  writing  is  the  fit  attendant  and  exponent  of 
those  functions  of  mind  which  cognize  the  inner  meanings  of 
the  facts  of  life  directly,  rather  than  those  which  study  them 
through  the  correlation  of  their  phenomena.  And  also,  that 
the  development  by  any  people  of  an  alphabetic  out  of  a  hiero 
glyphic  system,  does  not  imply  a  greater  advance  in  linguistic 
perfection  on  their  part,  but  indicates  a  corresponding  mental 
and  inner  change  of  attitude  towards  ideas  and  things,  and  a 
different  conception  of  the  self  as  related  to  them  all. 

It  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  assume  that  the  knowledge 
gained  by  one  method  is  deeper  or  more  exact  than  the  other. 
True  science  may  exist  as  fully  under  one  set  of  circumstances 
as  the  other.  If  we  will  take  the  type  of  the  so-called  most 
primitive  form,  the  monosyllabic  —  the  Chinese,  we  shall  find 
all  this  evidenced  in  the  clearest  manner.  To  note  but  one 
illustration,  a  study  of  the  scientific  and  philosophical  ideas 
involved  in  and  conveyed  by  the  word  k'ung,  for  Space,  ether, 
the  fundamental  substratum  of  sound  or  vibration,  as  well  as 
the  "interetheric"  central  point  of  balance  and  power,  will  dis 
close  an  understanding  that  has  nothing  to  fear  from  modern 
comparisons. 

And  the  very  fact  that  Chinese  has  had  to  depend  on  place 
ment  of  its  monosyllables  to  express  all  the  relations  for  which 
speech  is  called  upon,  instead  of  relying  on  changes  of  form, 
seems  to  have,  and  indeed  has  so  stimulated  the  development 
of  pure  linguistic  power  that  the  language  is  actually  as  per- 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  55 

feet  and  clear  a  medium  of  cultured  and  learned  intercourse, 
as  is  the  Sanskrit,  the  supreme  type  of  the  so-called  most  de 
veloped  form,  the  inflectional.  And  by  reason  of  its  possession 
of  the  ideographic  element  it  has  a  vividness  which  the  San 
skrit  has  not.  No  language  can  be  a  highly  developed  one 
which  does  not  provide  in  some  way  for  the  expression  of  all 
possible  needed  relations  between  the  three  fundamental  pos 
tulates  of  life  and  activity  —  the  self,  the  action  and  the 
world ;  and  Chinese  does  this  in  spite  of  its  monosyllabic  struc 
ture  by  the  development  of  its  syntax  of  position.  And  it 
should  be  remembered  further  that  Chinese  syntax,  in  strict 
correspondence  to  the  genius  of  the  language,  is  not  the  same 
formal  thing  that  syntax  is  with  our  inflectional  tongues,  but 
includes,  or  rather  is  primarily  based  on  the  harmonic  adjust 
ment  of  the  inherent  basic  ideas  of  or  within  the  words.  The 
Chinese  monosyllables  are  then  not  the  naked  separate  things 
they  are  in  the  dictionary,  but  the  whole  phrase  or  sentence 
is  on  the  contrary  as  much  a  unit  as  one  of  ours;  and  often 
more  so. 

This  integral  unity  of  the  whole  sentence  or  expression, 
dominated  by  a  perspective  of  ideas  rather  than  of  forms, 
which  is  achieved  in  Chinese  by  the  elaboration  of  placement, 
is  also  characteristic  of  the  structure  of  the  languages  of  the 
American  continent;  but,  these  languages  being  polysyllabic, 
the  vividness  and  unity  are  attained  by  a  method  described  as 
Incorporation,  whereby  the  accessories  of  relation  are  so  in 
cluded  in  or  attached  to  the  leading  word  that  the  whole  ex 
pression  assumes  the  form  and  sound  of  a  single  word.  And 
a  similar  process  takes  place  with  the  various  elements  of 
a  compound  sentence.  So  that  although  this  one  of  the  divis 
ions  of  language  approaches  very  closely  to  the  Inflectional  in 
its  external  forms,  it  yet  has  held  to  the  vividness  and  essential 
characteristics  of  the  ideographic  method.  And  it  is  a  point 
of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  decipherment  of  the  Maya 
glyphs,  to  note  as  has  been  stated  before,  that  their  syntax  of 
combination  must  follow  that  of  the  spoken  language,  which 
we  know. 


56  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

There  is  one  broad  line  of  division  marking  all  the  lan 
guages  and  civilizations  of  the  world  —  the  line  between  the 
ideographic  and  the  literal;  it  marks  the  use  of  hieroglyphic 
or  of  alphabetic  writing,  and  it  denotes  a  culture  so  widely 
different  from  ours,  modes  of  thought  so  distinct,  views  of  life 
and  man's  relation  to  it  one  might  almost  say  so  opposite  to 
ours,  as  to  point  unmistakably  to  a  most  distant  past,  and  a 
former  world-culture  probably  as  wide-spread  in  its  day  as  is 
now  ours  —  or  more  so.  And  it  is  one  of  the  strangest  and 
most  remarkable  of  the  phenomena  we  are  considering,  that 
the  two  divisions  have  overlapped  each  other  in  time  to  such 
a  degree  that  whereas  we  have  in  Sanskrit,  the  most  perfect 
type  of  Aryan,  or  inflectional  languages,  the  oldest  of  them 
all;  on  the  other  hand  we  have  in  Chinese  an  equally  perfect 
linguistic  medium  of  the  other  type,  kept  alive  into  our  own 
times. 

When  we  consider  the  development  and  status  of  the  Amer 
ican  civilizations  which  have  been  revealed  to  us,  and  especially 
when  we  have  once  opened  our  minds  to  the  possibility  that 
world-civilizations  different  in  their  time  from  ours  in  ours, 
may  for  all  we  know  have  existed  and  been  blotted  out  ages 
ago,  leaving  linguistic  traces,  and  perhaps  perpetuating  cultural 
remnants  in  a  few  parts  of  the  earth,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
recognize  the  breadth  of  the  problem  we  are  considering.  All 
over  the  American  continent  at  the  time  of  the  Discovery  we 
see  cultures  and  systems  whose  time  had  come.  Back  of  most 
of  the  North  and  South  American  tribes  we  find  the  remains 
of  mighty  and  utterly  extinct  civilizations  —  only  their  dim 
memory  left.  In  the  centers  of  higher  culture  from  Mexico 
to  Peru  we  see  the  ancient  civilization  brought  further  down 
to  our  own  times ;  but  there  also,  in  process,  all  the  incidents 
of  break-up  and  an  expiring  greatness.  Internecine  strife, 
invasion  from  outside,  changes  of  center,  are  all  going  on,  and 
all  marked  by  a  steady  decrease  in  everything  that  means  civ 
ilization.  Of  the  ancient  mathematical  and  astronomical  know 
ledge  a  corner  of  which  is  revealed  to  us  by  the  Maya  glyph 
remains,  only  a  distorted  fragment  appears  in  the  Mexican, 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  57 

where  also  hieroglyphs  have  yielded  to  a  cruder  rebus-writing. 
The  stately  and  incomparable  compositions  and  architecture 
of  Palenque,  Copan  and  Quirigua  have  yielded  to  the  ball 
courts  and  local  strifes  of  Chichen  Itza  —  all  this  following  the 
very  course  of  changing  historical  succession  preserved  in  the 
Chronicles.  The  later  the  date,  the  lower  in  every  case  the 
culture ;  this  is  impossible  not  to  recognize,  nor  have  we  traces 
of  any  different  course  of  events.  Of  course  we  see  the  rise 
of  the  Aztec  nation,  a  small  cycle,  but  like  the  Gothic  upon 
the  Roman,  it  comes  at  the  end  of  the  general  American 
break-up  —  an  incursion  of  barbarians  settling  on  and  pre 
serving  for  us  fragments  of  the  culture  that  preceded  them, 
just  as  has  happened  over  and  over  again  all  over  the  world. 
And  the  same  with  the  Incas  in  Peru.  And  yet  even  the  Mex 
ican  culture  demands  our  high  respect,  comparing  favorably 
with  European  of  the  same  period.  Indeed  it  was  actually  far 
ahead  of  the  latter  in  matters  of  education  and  many  points 
of  polity. 

But  in  spite  of  its  seeming  greatness,  its  heart  and  energy 
were  gone,  just  as  with  Peru,  and  both  yielded  to  what  on  the 
face  seems  a  miracle,  but  was  only  the  expression  of  that 
force  which  was  preparing  the  American  continent  for  a  new 
race  and  civilization,  still  now  only  in  its  beginnings.  The 
Mayan  empire  had  already  broken  up.  And  even  as  we  write, 
the  archaeological  history  of  the  other  hemisphere  is  being 
repeated  here ;  on  the  heels  of  Manabi  comes  the  Chimu  Val 
ley,  and  soon  it  will  be  with  America  as  with  Egypt  —  one 
will  not  be  able  to  print  an  up-to-date  work  on  its  early  his 
tory,  for  new  discoveries  will  carry  it  back  further,  and  to 
greater  scope,  before  the  previous  ones  can  be  edited  and 
gotten  to  press.  Compare  the  few  pages  of  earliest  Egypt  in 
Sharpe's  history,  with  Flinders  Petrie's  work  of  a  decade  or 
so  ago,  and  that  with  the  situation  today. 

It  is  a  simple  fact  that  decipherment  and  publication  all 
over  the  world  can  no  longer  keep  pace  with  discovery;  and 
the  time  has  come  for  archaeology  to  begin  to  survey  these 
remnants,  engineering  works  that  would  tax  any  modern  na- 


58  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

tion  with  all  our  appliances,  vast  ruined  cities,  one  above  the 
other,  innumerable  languages  and  writings,  the  traces  of  peo 
ples  whose  very  names  are  lost  to  history  —  as  a  whole,  and 
to  ask  itself  how  long  it  must  have  taken  for  all  these  works 
to  be  accomplished,  let  alone  for  the  birth  and  decay  of  the 
civilizations  that  supported  them,  and  gave  environment   for 
the  development  of  such  technical  skill  as  could  finish  the  enor 
mous  bulk  of  the  Great  Pyramid  with  an  accuracy  beyond  the 
fineness  of  our  best  instruments  to  measure.     For  not  only 
mere  bulk  is  to  be  considered  —  though  there  is  enough  of  that 
scattered   over   the   earth   to   keep   all   the   possible   available 
craftsmen  of  the  world  a  wholly  incommensurate  time  achiev 
ing  them,  but  the  ability  to  conceive  and  carry  out  such  works. 
What  sort  of  people  leveled  Monte  Alban  for  its  crown  of 
pyramids,    dreamed    and    executed    the    stucco   modelings    of 
Palenque,  built  the  temple  of  Boro  Budur  in  Java,  cut  the 
Bamian  statues  of  the  Hindu  Kush,  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  for 
page  after  page?     If  they  had  such  appliances  as  we  have, 
they  must  be  ranked  at  least  in  our  class  for  having  them ;   if 
they  did  them  without  our  great  engines,  what  sort  of  men 
were  they?     And  if  they  could  do  these  things  without  our 
appliances,  is  it  not  a   fair  inference  that  they  could  easily 
have  made  the  tools,  or  others  better  perhaps? 

One  fact  is  becoming  more  prominent  with  every  advance 
of  archaeology  over  the  world,  a  fact  of  the  greatest  linguistic 
interest,  namely  that  ancient  civilizations  and  empires,  as  a 
whole,  lasted  longer  than  ours  of  today.  Consider  how  many 
different  and  successive  empires  Europe  has  had  in  the  last 
2000  odd  years,  our  history;  and  how  long  each  of  our  cul 
tures  has  lasted.  All  of  them  put  together  would  go  into  one 
of  these  older  periods,  and  have  plenty  to  spare.  Passing 
over  what  may  be  the  real  meaning  and  bearing  of  this  fact 
on  the  problem  of  universal  history  and  human  evolution, 
and  the  position  of  our  race  today,  the  linguistic  considera 
tions  which  follow  are  most  interesting. 

If  the  fundamental  thesis  of  language  as  a  human  activity 
is  its  direct  correspondence  to  and  expression  of  all  the  inner 


COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX  59 

motives  and  forces  of  the  users,  we  have  here  a  key  to  the 
survival  to  our  day,  an  unknown  period  past  its  own  time,  of 
the  Chinese  type. 

Of  the  development,  modification  and  decay  of  languages 
we  have  ample  material  in  our  own  times  for  study,  the  periods 
over  which  the  modifying  forces  operate  being  an  equal  meas 
ure  of  the  periods  of  national  activity  and  change.  And, 
what  is  perhaps  not  always  sufficiently  recognized,  we  have  an 
elaboration  of  the  formal  elements  going  on  under  very  dif 
ferent  impulses,  at  different  periods  of  the  life  of  the  language. 
The  time  has  come  in  the  history  of  a  people  for  it  to  play  a 
greater  part  on  the  world's  stage :  some  danger  has  threatened 
the  national  life  and  aroused  its  energies,  or  other  causes  have 
worked  to  quicken  the  mental  and  spiritual  life;  an  Eliza 
bethan  era  is  ushered  in,  frequently  by  a  forerunner,  a  Chau 
cer,  and  the  language  responds,  its  forms  develop  and  are 
perfected.  Or  else  some  fitting  or  amalgamating  force  comes 
in  from  outside,  the  life  of  the  people  is  widened,  new  blood 
enters  in  every  sense,  and  the  forms  of  the  language  respond. 
Or  perhaps,  when  they  may  seem  to  have  come  to  the  tether 
end  of  things,  and  men's  minds  turn  back  to  older,  even  pre 
historic  times,  seeds  long  buried  and  forgotten  in  the  nature 
spring  up,  and  a  true  national  Renaissance  follows.  In  these 
cases  the  change  and  elaboration  of  forms  is  a  symptom  of 
new  life;  the  vehicle  is  being  molded  and  expanded  to  fit 
the  growing  thought. 

But  it  is  not  always  so.  There  comes  a  time  when  the 
outgoing  force,  the  activity  of  life,  wanes  and,  after  a  greater 
or  less  period  of  settled  conditions,  a  period  of  proper  use  and 
government  of  the  regions  occupied,  a  change  sets  in.  And 
then  we  may  have  again  the  wholly  deceptive  phenomenon  of 
linguistic  amplification;  but  it  is  the  false  activity  of  decay. 
The  energy  has  turned  in  and  begun  to  feed  upon  itself.  The 
national  impulse  has  changed  from  achievement  to  gratifica 
tion,  more  and  more  sources  are  drawn  upon  to  minister  to 
its  enjoyment,  and  that  enjoyment  becomes  an  art;  forms  of 
every  kind  are  subtly  refined  in  its  service,  and  linguistic  forms 


60  COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

with  them.  And  this  is  then  the  very  period  when  all  these 
material,  formal  elements  are  pointed  to  with  pride  as  the 
evidence  of  culture  and  progress.  The  thought-life  of  the 
nation  has  lost  itself  in  the  conflict  and  confusion,  in  the  dis 
tractions  of  the  forms  into  which  it  has  molded  the  matter 
its  creative  force  had  entered. 

We  have  thus  in  nations  and  languages,  as  in  individuals, 
the  phenomena  of  birth,  growth,  use,  and  a  quick  or  a  slow 
death,  all  marked  by  various  degrees  and  signs  of  health  or 
disease,  and  every  one  at  root  a  moral  question.  These  are 
the  facts  of  general  average,  quite  corresponding  to  those 
that  form  the  bases  for  life  insurance  tables.  But,  as  with 
these  latter,  not  only  are  there  variations  for  inheritance, 
class,  locality,  and  so  on,  but  there  are  here  and  there  cases 
of  out  and  out  exception  —  which  from  all  we  can  see  must 
be  assigned  to  some  external  force  in  operation  on  the  indiv 
idual.  We  call  them  "  freak  "  occurrences,  only  because  we 
cannot  see  the  wider  law  or  causes  at  work.  When  we  meet 
them  in  sufficient  numbers,  we  make  new  tables  to  cover  them 
as  far  as  we  can,  again  in  general  only.  Other  causes  still 
elude  us,  though  they  must  have  a  fountain  somewhere. 

We  have,  as  great  exceptions  to  our  general  averages, 
two  opposite  phenomena.  One  is  the  sudden  inexplicable  and 
dazzling  rise  on  the  world's  stage  of  a  totally  insignificant 
people,  the  other  the  seeming  arrest  for  long  periods  of  time 
of  the  normal  processes  of  even  incipient  decay.  And  touch 
ing  the  latter  point,  it  is  strange  indeed  that  in  two  such  widely 
different  cultures  as  those  of  Iceland  and  China  we  should 
find  the  same  law  apparently  at  work;  the  periods  are  vastly 
unlike  in  actual,  but  not  so  in  relative  duration.  We  have  no 
way  of  properly  placing  the  maintenance  of  Icelandic  and 
Chinese  as  they  have  been  other  than  by  simply  laying  down 
the  existence  of  what  we  may  call  a  Law  of  Retardation, 
whose  ultimate  causes  we  cannot  fathom  or  classify,  but  which 
will  stand  as  an  opposite  phase  of  the  Law  of  Stimulation, 
which  is  more  frequent  in  operation,  but  is  equally  unex 
plained. 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ  CODEX  61 

If  we  will  now  regard  the  languages  and  cultures  of  the 
world,  we  will  find  all  the  phases  of  linguistic  and  cultural 
activity,  operative  with  about  the  same  degree  of  rapidity,  all 
over  both  hemispheres,  save  in  places  protected  by  our  Law 
of  Retardation.  We  will  find  the  rate  of  changes  and  succes 
sions  generally  far  less  rapid  the  farther  back  in  time  we  go; 
and  finally  we  will  find  a  special  and  marked  acceleration  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  during  the  last  thousand  years,  all 
incident  to  the  placing  of  a  new  race  in  America. 

So  for  the  facts  as  we  find  them.  They  point  to  the  des 
cent  of  past  American  civilizations  from  a  past  period  of 
continental,  or  far  more  probably,  of  world-wide  extent.  For 
who  can  imagine  that  people  great  enough  to  build  as  these 
did,  should  not  also  have  navigated?  Why  should  we  assume 
in  the  face  of  other  experiences,  that  Maya  dates  and  calcul 
ations  mean  nothing,  except  on  the  general  principle  that  they 
did  not  know  as  much  as  we  do,  and  were  doubtless  liars? 
Bailly  proved  over  a  hundred  years  ago  that  Hindu  exact 
astronomical  observations  must  date  back  at  least  5000  years, 
and  that  they  were  in  possession  of  minutely  accurate  tables  * 
long  before  Europe  was.  And  the  rotundity  of  the  earth  was 
certainly  known  both  to  them  and  the  other  great  nations  of 
antiquity. 

Archaeology  is  today  pushing  back  the  dates  of  fixed  and 
acknowledged  history  almost  to  the  date  given  by  the  Egyp 
tians  to  Solon  for  the  submersion  of  the  great  Atlantean  is 
land;  and  if  we  can  but  read  the  Maya  glyphs,  and  open  that 
door,  another  twenty  years  from  now  may  show  us  beyond  all 
possible  dispute  evidences  in  every  part  of  the  earth  belt  of 
a  contemporaneous  culture,  different  from  and  precedent  to 
the  Aryan. 

I  have  so  far  in  this  monograph,  based  upon  and  having  to 
do  as  it  has  with  the  Maya  glyphs,  their  interpretation  and 
their  place  in  the  linguistic  field,  limited  myself  to  an  analysis 
and  consideration  of  the  facts  presented  to  us  by  those  linguis- 

*  Traite  de  V Astronomic  Indienne  et  Orientate,  Disc.  Prel.  et  seq. 


62  COMMENTARY  ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

tic  and  cultural  data  we  have  actually  before  us.  But  there  is 
one  further  problem  which  is  suggested  by  it  all.  It  is  this : 
Where,  in  point  of  time  and  place,  is  the  change  in  the  world's 
linguistic  and  cultural  life  from  ideographic  to  literal  to  be 
sought  for,  and  what  is  its  rationale?  Separated  from  us  by 
such  an  enormous  period  of  time  as  it  is,  I  still  cannot  believe 
that  some  view  of  it  cannot  be  had.  There  are  various  facts 
of  Old  World  history  and  language,  partly  of  prehistoric 
Europe,  partly  of  Asia,  an  analysis  of  which  would  extend 
this  paper  too  far  into  other  fields ;  but  apart  entirely  from 
the  question  of  myths  or  traditions,  there  are  various  actual 
observed  phenomena  both  of  language  and  writing,  especially 
in  Central  Asia,  which  do  not  fit  into  any  of  the  ordinary 
theories,  and  which  do  suggest  this,  as  a  simple  linguistic 
conclusion.  In  point  of  locality,  at  least,  the  conclusion  agrees 
with  the  usual  "  Aryan  home  "  theory ;  but  as  far  as  concerns 
this  latter  it  must  be  remembered  that  however  fully  it  demon 
strates  the  unity  of  the  Aryan  race,  beyond  that  fact  all  ques 
tions  of  dates  and  even  of  the  state  of  civilization  at  the  time, 
are  not  matters  of  history  as  yet  for  us,  but  only  of  theory  — 
as  to  which  our  present  "perspective"  may  be  once  more  as 
faulty  as  it  has  often  been  heretofore.* 

*  The  suggestion  above  is  linguistic,  and  in  that  phase  is  given  as 
a  corollary  to  the  foregoing  discussion ;  but,  as  stated,  it  is  at  the  same 
time  in  accord  with  the  "  Aryan  "  theory  in  its  essentials  (though  not 
in  its  hypothetical  and  ultra-historical  speculations),  and  it  also  finds 
confirmation  by  various  passages  in  The  Secret  Doctrine,  by  H.  P. 
Blavatsky,  as  already  quoted.  "  The  traces  of  an  immense  civilization, 
even  in  Central  Asia,  are  still  to  be  found.  This  civilization  is  unde 
niably  prehistoric.  .  .  .  The  Eastern  and  Central  portions  of  those 
regions  —  the  Nan-Shan  and  the  Altyn-Tagh —  were  once  upon  a  time 
covered  with  cities  that  could  well  vie  with  Babylon.  A  whole  geologi 
cal  period  has  swept  over  the  land,  since  those  cities  breathed  their 
last,  as  the  mounds  of  shifting  sand,  and  the  sterile  and  now  dead 
soil  of  the  immense  central  plains  of  the  basin  of  Tarim  testify. 
...  In  the  oasis  of  Cherchen  some  300  human  beings  represent  the 
relics  of  about  a  hundred  extinct  nations  and  races  —  the  very  names 
of  which  are  now  unknown  to  our  ethnologists."  (Vol.  I,  page  xxxii 
ct  seq.)  See  also  Col.  Prjevalsky's  Travels.  Why  should  it  not  be  so? 
The  above  was  written  in  1888,  but  the  evidences  are  growing  every 
day,  and  it  will  be  against  all  archaeological  precedent  if  far-reaching 
results  do  not  follow  from  Dr.  Stein's  small  find,  and  from  Capt. 
d'Ollone's  recent  researches  among  the  Lolos,  and  the  securing  by 


COMMENTARY  ON  THE  PEREZ   CODEX  63 

I  believe  that  this  center  of  transition  lay  somewhere  in 
Central  Asia,  to  the  north  of  the  great  Himalayan  range. 
That  this  region  was  a  sort  of  alembic,  a  melting-pot  (as 
America  is  today)  for  various  peoples  of  an  ancient  world 
wide  culture,  as  broad  at  least  in  its  scope  as  the  term  Aryan 
is  today.  That  this  culture  displayed  the  ideographic  traits 
we  have  discussed,  and  that  it  has  left  more  or  less  definite 
traces  at  different  places  in  the  world.  That  it  covered  the 
two  Americas,  in  whatever  continental  form  they  may  then 
have  existed,  leaving  us  there  "  les  debris  echappes  a  un  nau- 
frage  commun."  That  coincident  with  a  new  and  universal 
world-epoch,  as  wide  in  its  cultural  scope  as  the  difference 
between  the  ideographic  and  literal,  there  was  finally  formed 
a  totally  new  vehicle  for  the  use  of  human  thought,  the  in 
flectional,  literal,  alphabetic.  That  this  vehicle  was  perfected 
into  some  great  speech,  the  direct  ancestor  of  Sanskrit,  into 
the  forms  of  which  were  concentrated  all  the  old  power  of  the 
ancient  hieroglyphs  and  their  underlying  concepts.  For  San 
skrit,  while  the  oldest  is  also  the  mightiest  of  Aryan  gram 
mars;  and  no  one  who  has  studied  its  forms,  or  heard  its 
speech  from  educated  native  mouths,  can  call  it  anything  but 
concentrated  spiritual  power.  That  the  force  which  went  on 
the  one  hand  into  the  Sanskrit  forms,  was  on  the  other  per 
petuated  on  into  the  special  genius  of  Chinese,  in  which,  as  we 
know  it,  we  have  a  retarded  survival,  not  of  course  of  outer 
form  so  much  as  of  method  and  essence.  And  in  Tibetan, 
in  spite  of  all  that  is  said  to  the  contrary,  I  suspect  that  we 
have  a  derivative,  not  from  either  Chinese  or  Sanskrit  as  we 
know  them,  but  by  a  medial  line  from  a  common  point.*  Of 

him,    as    we    are    informed,    of   the    long-sought   knowledge    of    their 
hieroglyphic  system. 

*  The  study  of  Tibetan  has  so  far  been  approached  almost  exclusively 
from  the  south,  that  is  by  those  already  familiar  with  Sanskrit  and 
Pali.  To  this  fact,  as  well  as  to  the  overwhelming  influence  exercised 
on  literary  Tibetan  by  the  Buddhist  propaganda,  is  due  the  difficulty 
one  meets  in  any  study  of  its  origins.  The  traces,  however,  do  never 
theless  exist.  Some  interesting  facts  concerning  both  Chinese  and 
Tibetan,  which  seem  to  be  entirely  omitted  in  such  later  standard 
works  as  those  of  Summers,  Wade,  and  Giles,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
almost  forgotten  Chinese  Grammar  of  Dr.  Marshman,  Serampore,  1814. 


64  COMMENTARY   ON   THE  PEREZ   CODEX 

course  the  time  for  such  changes  must  have  been  enormous; 
but  whatever  it  was,  it  was  no  greater  in  its  realm  as  time, 
than  were  the  mental  differences  in  theirs.  And  they  both 
are  equally  human  data. 

Certain  other  facts  point  to  the  American  or  Atlantic 
source  and  center  of  this  ancient  epoch.  They  are  briefly  that 
all  around  the  Mediterranean  basin  we  find  traces  of  a  van 
ished  culture,  unknown  to  our  history,  and  living  only  in  tra 
dition  and  some  archaeological  remains.  And  of  this  culture 
various  investigators,  each  approaching  it  from  his  particular 
favorite  locality,  have  constructed  for  us  as  many  different 
"  Empires,"  by  theories  each  supported  by  various  details  of 
analogies.  One  calls  them  Tartars,  another  Hittites,  another 
Pelasgians,  and  so  on.  And  all  of  them,  in  each  of  the  theo 
ries,  have  as  a  fact  a  great  many  unexplained  characteristics, 
different  from  those  of  our  historical  nations.  Some  of  these 
characteristics,  most  markedly  the  Basque,  but  also  not  a  few 
at  greater  distance,  have  definite  American  similarities.  It 
might  not  be  a  far  guess  that  these  fragments  represent  an 
eastward  movement,  which  later  in  the  history  of  the  Aryan 
development  met  and  was  pushed  back  westward  again  by  the 
fully  formed  and  dominant  Aryan  race  from  its  Central  Asian 
center.  This  is  the  future  province  of  Archaeology. 

And  I  am  convinced  that  the  widest  door  there  is  to  be 
opened  to  this  past  of  the  human  race,  is  that  of  the  Maya 
glyphs.  The  narrow  limitations  of  our  mental  horizon  as  to 
the  greatness  and  dignity  of  man,  of  his  past,  and  of  human 
evolution,  were  set  back  widely  by  Egypt  and  what  she  has 
had  to  show,  and  again  by  the  Sanskrit;  but  the  walls  are 
still  there,  and  advances,  however  rapid,  are  but  gradual. 
With  the  reading  of  America  I  believe  the  walls  themselves 
will  fall,  and  a  new  conception  of  past  history  will  come. 


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